Every Wednesday and Saturday morning for more than 20 years in downtown Waynesville, a group of farmers have gathered to hawk their wares from card tables and pickup beds in the parking lot of the Badcock Furniture store.

The market is a low-key affair with loose rules, and little has changed since its beginning. Now, some wonder if the farmer’s market has fallen into a complacent routine at the expense of ignoring the growing demand for a bigger and better selection of local produce.

Growing pains

Recently, the increasing number of farmers wanting to participate and the crowds of customers cramping the market have sparked a dialogue on whether it’s time to relocate to a bigger space.

“The market has been a great market, and it’s still a great market, but it’s been experiencing growing pains,” says Tim Matthews, the N.C. Cooperative Extension agent who helps oversee it.

The terrain of the Badcock parking lot isn’t necessarily set up to accommodate a wave of vendor stalls. Except for the very top, the parking lot is sloped downward toward the store. In the middle is a cut-through frequently used by nearby residents.

“It would be better if it was on level ground,” acknowledges Lisa Leatherwood, a farmer who has sold her tomatoes, cucumbers and peppers at the market for 10 years.

“Cars sometimes go down at very fast rates of speed and come close to the curb,” adds vendor Joanne Meyer.

Parking is also an issue — there’s simply not enough. Customers from Badcock vie for space with market visitors.

“The market shares a space with those businesses there, and the market people are taking the space that their customers need,” says Carol James, an advocate for expanding and relocating the market.

Customers aren’t the only ones fighting for space. More vendors want a chance to sell at the market, but they’re being turned away for lack of room.

Vendor Walter Meyer said the market can only accommodate about 27 stalls, and this year there were more growers than that who wanted to participate.

“We had more farmers applying than we had room for,” he said. “It’s getting to the size we’re outgrowing the spot.”

More products?

It’s not just space that’s limiting the number of vendors — it’s also rules on what can be sold.

Currently, farmers can’t sell items like meat, eggs, cheese, or jams and jellies. As a result, the offerings are mostly limited to vegetables, flowers and herbs.

Most markets around the region allow these types of products — so why not Waynesville?

The restriction basically stems from the owners of the parking lot — they don’t want the liability of someone getting sick from a product that falls under the scrutiny of the USDA.

“I think that there’s always the fear of liability. If somebody gets sick on something that’s eaten, who does the liability fall on?” explained Matthews. The extension agent is in charge of inspecting and certifying the operations of tailgate market vendors. If these other products — known as “value-added” items — were sold, responsibility of inspections would fall under a range of departments. The USDA would look at eggs and meat, for example, while the cooperative extension would still do vegetables. Ultimately, it would be up to the farmer to make sure he or she had the right certification.

Matthews doubts the likelihood of anyone getting sick from something at the market.

“These farmers, what they’re selling is basically leftover from what they feed their own families,” he said.

The limited selection of products doesn’t sit well with everyone. Barbra Gulisano, who relocated to Waynesville several years ago, says she was taken aback at the restriction.

“We have too many great farmers, and there’s no reason they can’t be in their own town selling their products,” she said.

The restrictions send customers out of town to other markets, says Gulisano.

“We have a lot of customers keep saying, ‘why can’t you do this, why can’t you have jams and jellies and other things?’ And they go to Asheville. Basically, we’re losing customers,” agrees Walter Meyer.

“Why do I have to go to Asheville when I know we have plenty of people here we can buy from?” asks Gulisano.

Gulisano and James — who have formed a group called the Waynesville Tailgate Market Committee to study proposed changes — say the facts support including value-added items on the menu of the market. Two weeks ago the two passed out 130 surveys to attendants of the Whole Blooming Thing spring festival in Frog Level.

“From the surveys collected, people want the meat and the eggs and the cheeses and the baked goods and preserves. We could also have nice crafts that would appeal to tourists,” says James.

Gulisano said the results were overwhelmingly in favor of value-added products.

“Ninety-nine percent of people were for value-added products, and there’s absolutely no reason we can’t have them,” she said.

Matthews cautions, though, that adding wares like crafts could change the character of the market.

“The one thing we don’t want the market to do is become a flea market. Anything that’s sold there should have its roots in agriculture,” he said. “I don’t mind seeing the market expand, but I want to see it expand to include agricultural products, not junk.”

And Buffy Messer, director of the Downtown Waynesville Association, says the market was never meant to sell a wide array of products at its current location.

“I think there is still confusion as to what the market has been, and what it’s capable of being,” she said.

The lack of value-added products is putting a damper on the dreams of supporters of an expanded farmer’s market.

Walter Meyer imagines a place with 50 to 60 vendors where the community could mill about and enjoy coffee, cold drinks and pastries.

James envisions cooking demonstrations and “a whole gamut of things, so it becomes a very festive place and is really the foundation of the community.”

Finding space

So where could the market relocate to in order to expand and grow?

The downtown space of Waynesville is limited. There has been talk of moving the market to the First Baptist parking lot on Main Street, but parking is limited there too. The Waynesville Recreation Center has also been touted as an option, as has the parking lot owned by the Haywood Advancement Foundation across Hyatt Creek Road from the soon-to-be Super Wal-Mart and the parking lot of Waynesville Plaza.

But the predominant model, according to Peter Marks, director of Appalachian Sustainable Agriculture Program, is to keep the market downtown. Doing so has several advantages — including providing an economic benefit to main street areas.

Marks and others interviewed shoppers at farmer’s markets in Buncombe and Madison counties and found that the farmer’s market was the sole reason 65 percent of people ventured into town that day. Of those respondents, 34 percent said they were going to do some other shopping in town.

And when people come downtown in particular, they’re willing to pay more.

“People have studied that shoppers are willing to pay higher prices shopping downtown than in a non-downtown setting,” Marks said. “They’re partly willing to pay a little bit more for the experience of being downtown.”

James said she discovered the same thing through the surveys her group conducted.

“What we’re hearing is that markets generally function very well if they can be situated in a downtown because they have a positive impact on the surrounding area,” she said.

This is particularly true, James says, if the market is situated “in a place that needs some restoration, similar to the Frog Level area.” The tailgate committee is pushing for a relocation to Frog Level, a place dear to James’ heart — she owned a business there and served as head of the Frog Level Merchant’s Association.

“Frog Level is a strong possibility — that is one area that we are heavily focused on,” she says.

James says locating the market in Frog Level would help include the restored historic area.

“Waynesville has basically been split into Main Street and the rest of the community, and Frog Level and Hazelwood and other areas are not really included as part of the downtown area,” she says. “If we can get a market somewhere in the downtown area to bridge that gap, it would build a community that is one and not several separate.”

Though Walter Meyer supports relocating to a downtown area, he says some of the growers don’t want to move.

“Some are so afraid,” he said.

“We have some old-time growers, and for them to change is hard, and I totally understand that,” Gulisano says. “But for most of the people, I have to say they are very excited.”

But Messer says the divide is deeper.

“There’s a group that wants to move and a group that wants to stay where they are. I do think there is an ‘expanded market group’ that has split the tailgate market,” she said.

Who decides?

Ultimately, who would make the decision about relocating the farmer’s market?

The organizational structure of the market is loose. Technically, the Downtown Waynesville Association has been the main overseer of the tailgate market. It’s only one of the many responsibilities DWA has, however, and there isn’t always enough time for the staff of two to dedicate the requisite 10 or more hours a week.

“It’s in our district and we’ve been overseeing it for years, and it’s certainly grown. Our job has certainly grown as well along with the downtown area and the addition of many, many more events — it’s just become more and more work for us,” she says.

There isn’t an association of growers in place and no market director apart from DWA. Recently, the Waynesville Tailgate Market Committee has installed a part-time, temporary, volunteer market manager to make sure things run smoothly.

“She’s there until we can find a paid position, and helping to keep things organized,” James says.

The committee didn’t consult DWA when they put a director in place, however — an act Messer doesn’t understand.

As long as the market stays in its current location, though, DWA remains in charge of it.

“As long as we stay where we are, they have a contract with them and they are in control of this market. We have to follow their rules. It’s not tailgate market rules, but DWA rules they’ve made up,” Gulisano says.

Messer says to the contrary, the rules have always been in place to govern the market —even before she became involved.

“I didn’t create these rules — these rules were here,” she says.

If the market moved, it could follow the rules of the ASAP or a separate group could make the rules.

James envisions the market being taken over by a private entity.

“We expect the market will eventually be sponsored by and managed by a separate group. That may include non-profits, the town of Waynesville, Haywood County — a large group of people that will oversee the operation of the market,” she said.

Mayor Gavin Brown, though, said it’s not the town’s place to oversee the market.

“If it gets bigger, we’ve got to decide what role the town will play in this,” he said. “I’ve got mixed emotions, to be quite honest. Personally, I don’t feel the town needs to take the lead in this particularly.”

Brown is concerned the market will be made up of vendors and shoppers from outside of Waynesville and won’t benefit the town directly.

“I’m not going to do it just to provide a place for people outside the community to provide for outsiders,” he said.

Messer says everyone has to work together in order to further the process – and that hasn’t necessarily been the case thus far.

“It would have made sense to work on this together and gradually make a move in the right direction at one time with the support of everyone in the town and county,” she says.

In the end, Gulisano hopes that people will support the formation of a private group and realize it could help better manage the market. She, too, says she sees the value in working collaboratively.

“I want everybody to know that we do want to work together. We’re not here to take a job away but to work with everybody,” she said. “That’s our main goal, and we want growers to have their voice.”