Winter Market Upsets Some Village Business Owners

Greendale Winter/Spring Open Market, an event to be held Saturday, may have been slightly marred after a number of vendors that posed as competition for local business were invited to take part in the event.

The event, to be held from 1 to 4 p.m., involves outside Greendale merchants highlighting and selling their wares at the Greendale Village Education Center.

Park and Recreation organized the event. Director Jackie Schweitzer wanted to hold the Open Market to bring in new people to the village.

"I’m doing this to generate traffic in the village because I want our business culture to thrive," Schweitzer said.

According to a few business owners and to Village Business Manger Anne Marie Pelkofer, the Parks and Recreation Department invited a number of outside vendors to participate in the Winter market. Some of those outside vendors sell similar products as National Bakery, Apples of Eden, Lotions & Potions and Cherri Savor the Flavor, said Pelkofer.

Pelkofer said that after the owners of four businesses showed concern for the competition, her office and Park and Rec sought a solution.

The vendors selling lotions and spices were no longer going to participate in the market, said Pelkofer. Instead of having Wildflower Bakery, who sell similar baked goods as National Bakery, Lopez Bakery will be at the market selling ethnic foods. The vendor selling apples was told not to sell caramel apples, which are the apples that Apples of Eden sells.

Instead Pelkofer asked Park Rec to give tables to Apples of Eden, Cherri Savor the Flavor, National Bakery and Lotions & Potions for no cost.

Apples of Eden took up the offer.

"We are down here all of the time. So to bring in businesses like that for once a week for a few hours that compete directly with us, we didn't think was fair," said Dee Dee Ternes, the owner of Lotion & Potions in Greendale.

"They listened to us, so it was a good thing," Ternes said.

Pelkofer said that the market can be good for other businesses and that others have expressed a liking to the market.

"It brings other people from outside of Greendale," she said. "A lot of people do like it. Merchants loved the idea."