Hightstown Mayor Resolves Farmers' Market Dispute

Hightstown’s farmers’ market will continue as usual this year, with a few accommodations made by the borough.

Democrat Mayor Steve Kirson said Monday the municipality will keep Borough Hall’s downstairs open on Friday afternoons this summer so patrons can use the bathrooms there, instead of going to local businesses like Tavern on the Lake, which sits adjacent to the market’s location in Memorial Park.

The mayor also said the borough will let market merchants park by Borough Hall to keep spaces in Memorial Lot open for local customers, and that the town will be open to getting a police officer to direct traffic if need be.

“The outlook was not to prohibit this, but to find ways we can get things done, not find ways of nullifying good ideas,” he said.

The changes come in response to a petition Tavern on the Lake owner Fran Palumbo brought to the Borough Council at its May 2 meeting. Signed by 10 local merchants (and another person who Palumbo said she later discovered was not a local business owner), the petition asked for the farmers’ market to be moved to Saturday mornings, and for anyone hosting an event on borough property to be required to make a portable toilet available to guests.

“It is extremely inappropriate for the town’s shopkeepers and/or business owners to be inappropriately displaced from using this municipal lot for their customers who wish to do business in our town,” the petition read in part.

The farmers’ market, which will begin its third year in June, has been held the past two summers on Friday afternoons in the Memorial Parking Lot on Main Street, which is owned by the borough.

Chris Moraitis, one of the market’s organizers, soon released a statement saying the market would stay where it was.

Mayor Kirson said after receiving the petition, he visited the signers and tried to work things out with them. “It was kind of misunderstood by most merchants who signed, and when I clarified, most were happy to have the market continue on Friday night,” he said, noting some believed they were being offered a choice between the two times and did not realize the move could shut the market down.

Palumbo, from the tavern, said she was satisfied with the way things worked out. “[The mayor]’s gone to everyone, especially the ones I had sign the petition, and he is 100 percent for the businesses of Hightstown, whatever it takes,” she said.

“I was very, very pleased knowing he's for all of us shopkeepers and he's trying to make the town appealing so people can come in, and the first thing he's doing for merchants in town is he's trying to understand their plight,” she continued.

Moraitis also said he was pleased with how things had worked out.

“We're very happy that these measures have assuaged any concerns. We further hope to work with the Tavern or other businesses so that they see the benefits of increased foot traffic in the downtown,” he said.

“It seems that businesses should try to leverage the traffic generated by the farmers’ market by promoting their own business – advertising that their menu uses local produce from the market, setting up their own tent to promote one of their menu items, or giving a free drink to people who show their farmers’ market receipt, thereby directing traffic to their own venue,” he added.