About half of the 70 vendors in the Peddler’s Village building at the St. Jacobs Farmers Market were able to set up shop inside Thursday for the first time since a major fire.
The fire broke out during the market’s operating hours on May 26.
It caused $150,000 worth of damage to the Peddler’s Village building itself, and an untold amount more to vendors.
Combining lost sales, inventory and in some cases equipment or other items, some vendors say their losses run into the tens of thousands of dollars.
Jaymee Martin of Grampa’s Soft Pretzels says her business is out the cost of some food and drink items, but more important is the two months she was left in an unanticipated limbo.
“This is my only source of income, so I was scraping by a little bit,” she said.
Martin says she’s heard of some vendors deciding not to return to St. Jacobs at all this year, because they’ve already missed quite a bit of the busiest season.
Ken and Helen Picken, on the other hand, can’t wait to be back.
Their Ben Heather Celtic Shop is one of the 35 or so vendors that couldn’t reopen Thursday, because work isn’t yet complete on some parts of the building.
At last word, the Pickens say, they were told that they would likely be able to return to business in August.
“The dates keep getting pushed back,” Ken Picken said.
Market management said Thursday that Peddler’s Village would likely reopen fully within a matter of weeks.
With reporting by Abigail Bimman
