Street Market Report - April 20, 2014

Ah, yes... the 4:20 market.

Easter Sunday at Pigeon Park.

The weather was cloudy and we got a little rain, but not too much to spoil a great market.

Total vendors at noon was 150 - down mostly due to the weather, but also probably due to the crowd of people assembled at the Art Gallery today enjoying a special Easter egg hunt.

As for our lot at 62 East Hastings St....

We gained access to the lot on October 1, 2013 - which means that it has now been 200 days since the City of Vancouver gave us that lot and we do not have the 4 things that they promised us that they would give us in order for us to run a market there. Those four things are: Power, Water, Bathrooms, Garbage.
It does not seem like an impossible task...

Despite the overcast weather, the market went extremely well.

We only had one incident - one of the illicit drinkers started fighting our volunteers and we had to call the cops. After the police arrived, the drinker started threatening and fighting with them. I have a feeling he won't be getting out of jail very soon.

We also had a very cute little girl handing out Easter messages.

We also took a brief survey.

In the last few meetings with CoV officials, we have been consistently told that all vending will have to move from Pigeon Park to the tiny lot at 62 East Hastings St. on Sundays. The date for this move has been set by the CoV as the beginning of May. We are still not sure why this move must take place, nor are we sure of why it must take place so quickly. Still, this would not be the first time the City of Vancouver committed mass displacement of marginalized people without any community consultation.

Jacek and I regularly talk about the fact that very few people are complaining about the market...

We get between 100 and 200 vendors every Sunday. We also get between 3,000 and 5,000 customers between 11am and 4pm.

It would be a stretch for someone to claim that all of these thousands of visitors were coming to the market to complain. :)

The results of the survey are as follows.

105 respondents, 32 customers and 73 vendors were asked a simple question:

Do you want to move all vending from Pigeon Park to 62 East Hastings by the start of May?

32 customers responded: No
Zero customers responded Yes.

73 vendors responded: No
 Zero vendors responded Yes.

Here is a graph of the results:

Financial Report

1) Table/Tent Rental = $120.50

2) Coffee/Pop Sales = $100.00
3) 50/50 Raffle = $48.80

Total revenue for the day = $269.30
Total spending for the week = $316.02

Petty Cash now = $492.23

Vendor Count = 150@noon

Bathroom Count = 108 uses btw 10am and 1pm, 79 uses btw 1pm and 4pm

We also had about 20 people test gadgets and appliances using our power at Pigeon Park