Upper Green Side

UGS Victory: Two Greenmarkets Approved

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Victory for Local Food in the Upper East Side.

Two Greenmarkets were approved tonight by the Streetfairs Committee of Community Board 8 tonight with an overwhelming level of community support. This was made possible in large part because of the efforts of members of the Upper Green Side. We handed out flyers at key locations in the neighborhood. We gave out posters to all the major doorman buildings in the area. We worked with the offices of local elected officials city councilmembers Lappin and Garodnick. There were over 30 members of the local community in attendence, which is pretty good for a community board subcommittee meeting. And there was a near consensus of those in attendence in favor of the greenmarkets for all of the obvious reasons - better community interaction, direct contact with the farmers, access to affordable fresh food, helping struggling farmers, reducing the amount of fossil fuels used to transport the food from farm to market. Everyone, that is, except Eli Zabar.

First Cathy from the greenmarkets organization introduced the planned expansion of the St. Stephen’s location. She explained how the new vendors would set up on the wide sidewalk on that street in front of the church. The trucks will park in the church’s designated reserved parking spaces. About 10 people from the community spoke in favor of greenmarkets. Then one woman who is a Member of the Community Board, spoke against the greenmarket being on the sidewalk since it would be unfair to other local vendors that are prevented from using many so-called residential streets. Despite the fact that there are a number of businesses on the street side of the block - a chocolate shop, 2 dry cleaners and a restaurant. Then, the head of the committee asked for a a show of hands - every member of the public raised their hands (including Eli) in support of the St. Stephen’s location. It was passed by the subcommittee by a 3-1 vote.

Then the discussion turned to the 92nd Street and First Aveune location. Eli Zabar immediately stated the same objections to the greenmarket at that location as he did to the PS 6 location that was later withdrawn by the CENYC - that he would basically face new competition near one of his stores that would draw away business. This was quickly dismissed by many members of the audience who all agreed that the Vinegar Factory served very different price ranges and offered very different product lines. Many pointed out that Eli’s stores catered to a higher income level and offered specialty products that would not be offered by a greenmarket. One guy said that he would continue to buy pate at The Vinegar Factory and also continue to shop for his fruits and vegetables elsewhere.

One line of argument that Eli used was that his store also gets much of its produce directly from local farmers, something that I don’t think he has advertised much in his promotional materials. We hope that he sees this for what it truly is - strong support in the local area for locally grown food and a stronger sense of community. We hope that in the future Eli will display more information about where the food he sells comes from and the farmers that are supported by his customers. In fact, perhaps he can set aside a section of his store that only sells locally grown food year round to the same standards of the CENYC greenmarkets.

Again, there was broad support of the greenmarkets from the rest of the public when it came time to raise hands again. There was also a discussion of parking the trucks on the street. A woman from across the street was concerned that the delivery trucks would take away parking from local residents, but quickly the President of the Holmes Towers Tenants Association offered some of the employee parking that is usually vacant on Sundays. With that and a change of the start time from 8am to 9am, the 92nd street greenmarket was approved by a 4-0 margin. It will almost certainly be approved by the Land Use Committee meeting on June 14th at the Hunter College School of Social Work, 129 East 79th Street, (Park-Lexington), Auditorium.

Also we plan to start promoting the greenmarkets in the week leading up to their opening on July 1st. Please come to our meeting on June 28 at 7pm at Rohr’s coffee shop where we will hand out promotional flyers and posters for the greenmarkets.