Certain vendor\u2019s fees at the Thursday Market is set to increase this October to generate more income for improvements for the weekly outdoor food and arts fair at the Garapan Fishing Base, according to Department of Community and Cultural Affairs Secretary Robert Hunter.<\/p>\n
Hunter, in an interview Monday with Saipan Tribune, said he recognizes that there is a problem with the Thursday Market\u2019s ability to sustain itself weekly and plans to address it by raising certain vendor\u2019s fees in the Thursday Market. <\/p>\n
\u201cRight now we are collecting approximately just over a third in vendor\u2019s fees that we need to cover the cost of each weekly event. So what we\u2019re doing is we are looking into the cost, to bring those down, and are raising in some cases some of the vendor\u2019s fees; food vendor\u2019s for example, and retail vendor\u2019s, and not raising the artist fees,\u201d said Hunter.<\/p>\n
According to Hunter, the purpose of the Thursday Market is to promote local products to tourists. In line with this, the DCCA secretary sees no need to raise artist vendor fees. \u201cThe whole point of the market when it was created was to bring local products, local artwork, local food, agriculture, originally to the tourist area, so that the connection is made between local products and our visitors. We don\u2019t want to affect the participation of our artists.\u201d<\/p>\n
The vendor\u2019s fee at Thursday Market as of now would cost the same no matter what the goods are. \u201cWhether you\u2019re an artist making handmade, one-of-a-kind work, or a commercial restaurant selling thousands of dollars of food every week, you pay $45,\u201d said Hunter. <\/p>\n
Hunter also wants to separate the vendor\u2019s fee of vendors selling food and vendors selling goods that are mass produced. \u201cWe\u2019re going to have a different system; food vendors are going to pay $80. We\u2019re breaking out retail vendors, people who are selling goods that are made through mass production for retail sale, they\u2019re going to pay $75, and then there are the artists, who would still pay $45.\u201d<\/p>\n
Food vendors reaction<\/strong><\/p>\n The nearly 100-percent increase in food vendor\u2019s fee at the Thursday Market didn\u2019t sit well with Thursday Market staple Canton Restaurant.<\/p>\n Canton Restaurant director Rose Chan said she\u2019s not too happy about the increase of the food vendor\u2019s fee. <\/p>\n \u201cOf course, nobody wants it,\u201d Chan bluntly said when asked about the increase. \u201cIn the increasing of the vendor\u2019s fee at the Thursday Market, we would have to reconsider the financials. I cannot make the decisions right now as it has yet to happen.\u201d <\/p>\n Chan also thinks that the Thursday Market\u2019s increase in food vendor\u2019s fee would hurt the way Canton Restaurant and other food vendors do business. <\/p>\n \u201cThe price of the food is already really low, with $5 for five food choices, the businessmen are not really making good money. On Saipan, can you buy [at] McDonald\u2019s with $5? No food costs $5 with that many choices,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n Chan is pretty skeptical about the increase of food vendor\u2019s fees, but if it\u2019s for the improvement of the Thursday Market, she would be relieved. <\/p>\n \u201cIf it\u2019s used for improvement, then we would be in favor, even though our prices would also be forced to get higher. I know some restaurants that sell for $6-$7 and they\u2019ve already closed down.\u201d<\/p>\n Thursday Market newcomer Shirley\u2019s Coffee Shop, meanwhile, said they would be amenable to the almost two-fold increase in food vendor\u2019s fee if it ultimately attracts more customers.<\/p>\n \u201cMaybe they (DCCA) got operating expenses too that they would like to cover using the vendor\u2019s fee,\u201d said Macario. \u201cWe\u2019re just hoping to see an increase of sales, too. Basically a good portion of our sales are coming from tourists. If we have an increase in tourists, maybe Shirley\u2019s would not be affected by the increase,\u201d said Puy Macario, assistant general manager of Shirley\u2019s Coffee Shop. <\/p>\n Motivate artists<\/strong><\/p>\n Hunter said he wants to motivate artists to sell their goods at the Thursday Market and are looking for more ways to help the artists with the possibility of lowering their vendor\u2019s fee. \u201cWe want to encourage the artist. If we can come down to a point where we can actually lower artist vendor fees that\u2019s what we\u2019d do. We\u2019re looking at other options like collective tents where artists can pay for just a portion, they can pay $20 and share it with other artists.\u201d<\/p>\n Subsidized costs could be shouldered by DCCA, but Hunter is not too keen on using the DCCA budget to subsidize the Thursday Market\u2019s lack of revenue all year long. \u201cWe need to bring the collection of revenue more in line with the cost of the event,\u201d says Hunter.<\/p>\n Hunter aims to showcase the CNMI in the best way possible. \u201cWe want to make the best market we can for the visitors and of course the vendors,\u201d said Hunter.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Certain vendor\u2019s fees at the Thursday Market is set to increase this October to generate…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[94],"tags":[3837,34,42,5349],"class_list":["post-234914","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-headlines","tag-canton-restaurant","tag-dcca","tag-food","tag-thursday-market"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/234914","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/22"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=234914"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/234914\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=234914"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=234914"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=234914"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}