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Evanston May Ban Non-Local Bakeries From Farmers Market

By Anthony Todd in Food on Mar 22, 2016 2:13PM

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Photo via Shutterstock.

The City of Evanston has caused a bit of a stir amongst Chicagoland's bakeries—they may ban any non-Evanston bakeries from selling their wares at the Evanston Farmers Market. This new rule would ban several regular vendors from the market, and has bakers screaming about discrimination.

We first came across this news from Sweety Pies, a Skokie-based bakery who posted about the ban on Facebook.

After being at the Evanston Farmers Market for the last 4 years, we have been notified today that we are no longer allowed (or any other non-Evanston Bakery, which there are 7 of us in total) to sell our baked goods at the Evanston Farmer’s Market.

They claim to have already paid their dues and license fees for the 2016 season.

Evanston Now looked into the story today, and found that there has been a rule in place since 2008 that only bakeries licensed by the City of Evanston can sell at Evanston farmers markets. But in practice, this has never been enforced. Until now. Seven non-local bakers will be prevented from selling their wares at the Evanston market if the rule is enforced. The city manager, Wally Bobkiewicz, says that they are working on a compromise for this year, but after 2016, there will be a "much larger review" of the market.

Despite Bobkiewicz's claim of a compromise, Sweety Pies maintains that "we still have yet to be contacted by the new director regarding a 'compromise' for this year." We'll see how this fight plays out.