Licensed liquor vendors will be able to participate in future farmers’ markets in Williams Lake.
The Cariboo Direct Farmers’ Market Association received approval to host liquor vendors by City Council Tuesday evening.
“We are actually quite encouraged by that because we were contacted by a liquor vendor from Prince George, Northern Lights Estates Winery, wondering if they could bring a product to the market and we had not even considered handling liquor vendors,” said executive director Barb Scharf.
“So we looked into it a bit further and found out that it’s becoming quite mainstream across the province to allow land-based wineries, breweries, etcetera to vend through farmers markets as long as they meet a series of regulations that the Liquor Control Board has set up and the BC Farmers Market Association has set up so the protocol is already in place and we just move from there.”
Scharf adds that Northern Lights Estates Winery is the only liquor vendor that has contacted them to date.
“There’s not a whole lot in this area as you perhaps are aware of,” she said.
“They’re looking at possibly later this summer and it wouldn’t be an every week thing. It would be just a few times this year, but depending on how it would go that might be something that becomes more frequent down the road.”
The Association will roll out its first Williams Lake evening farmers’ market on Tuesday, July 2 from 3 pm to 7 pm.