For the past seven years, Yonge-Dundas Square became a small city of tents during summer afternoons – a marketplace full of jewelry, crafts and fair trade goods from all over the world.
This year, that makeshift mall will be no more. Yonge-Dundas Square has announced the cancellation of its summer market.
In a letter to the artisans, Sara Peel, the manager of events for Yonge-Dundas, wrote:
“The scope and scale of the Square’s activities has changed over the last few years and we’re finding it increasingly difficult to offer the level of support and resources to make the market successful for you, the public and our other uses.”
Peel would not respond to further questions about the cancellation, leading vendors like Craig Kovacs to speculate.
“I’m guessing they want the Sonys and Playstations,” Kovacs says, alluding to big business interests (Sony actually makes Playstation).
Not too long ago, the square was home to a block of run down retail stores and video game arcades. It was transformed into a public space in 2002.
Now, with its neon lights, billboard ads and video screens, it’s often called Toronto’s Times Square – a place where fair trade journals made from recycled t-shirts in India aren’t the first things that come to mind.
But after setting up shop every summer for so long, Kovacs and the vendors see it differently. “The Square is supposed to represent the city’s diversity, he argues. “And that’s what we are.”
Kovacs’ inventory that he planned to sell at the market this summer have already been ordered from artists in Mexico, Africa and Asia, paid for and “they’re on their way!” he says. The decision to remove the market from the Square also affects the artists he buys from, he says.
Peres Ochola, who sells African sculptures and other artifacts, has also ordered all her products. “[The market] is something I’ve been banking on. And one day someone wakes up and tells me it’s no more.”
Some vendors have voiced hostility towards Yonge-Dundas Square, while others are scrambling to find a new location for the market in the downtown core.
“Running around doing festivals is expensive and not easy, that’s why we chose to stay in one place in Dundas Square,” Ochola says.
Other artisan markets do exist in the city but Kovacs praises Yonge-Dundas for being well managed and intolerant of mass production.
“Look at the CNE years ago,” Kovac says, “it’s a tired place now. They don’t promote their vendor’s market but [the vendors] still sit around doing it remembering it in the 80’s when it was good.”
“This isn’t about who is right and who is wrong, it’s about how we make it work.”
The vendors are hoping to negotiate with a Yonge-Dundas board member in a meeting set for this Friday, February 18.
