Kalamazoo’s indoor farmer’s market is scheduled to open for its usual hours tomorrow. Essentially a grocery store, the Bank Street Winter Market plans to keep going unless it’s ordered to close or business drops off.
The coronavirus pandemic does present challenges. Joe Mapes owns the bingo hall that lends its space to the market. Mapes says customers formed long lines for a chicken stand last weekend.
"If they were to be six feet apart, they would have been way down the street on Bank Street, so I’m not quite sure how to handle that," he said.
Mapes says things might be quieter tomorrow, if people have calmed down about stocking up. He says it's up to each vendor to practice good hygiene and social distancing, but he says he thinks they know what to do.
"You see it every day on the news about 'Do this, do that,' and they’re all very well aware of that," he said. Mapes doesn't supervise the sellers individually, but he added that he saw the vendor who sits across from him at the market clean his hands with sanitizer between each cash transaction last week.
Mapes says about 30 vendors came in last Saturday, down from about 45 the week before. He hopes to keep the market open for the rest of its regular season, which runs until the summer open-air market fires up across the street. So far the summer market is still scheduled to start on time in May.
