Despite the threat of being ticketed for peddling without permits, sellers continued to set up at the “outlaw market” Sunday outside the Logan Square Farmers Market as organizers said they were close to reaching a solution with the city.
Under clouds and light rain, sellers set up yard-sale-style booths on blankets and clothing racks on a short stretch of Logan Boulevard east of the popular weekend market.
Most unofficial sellers said they were aware of the threat of ticketing by police, but were assured by a Sunday-morning email from the market’s director that said they were closer to finding a solution with the city that would continue to let them sell.
“I believe [city officials] are leaning towards having us onboard you to our process like we do our farmers market vendors,” Nilda Esparza, executive director of the Logan Square Chamber of Commerce, which organizes the market, said in an email to unlicensed vendors.
Esparza said she recently spoke with Ald. Daniel La Spata’s (1st) office about traffic and pedestrian safety concerns due to the “influx” of unlicensed vendors. She cited double-parking and confrontations between licensed vendors trying to park on the permitted block.
“Our vendors are all licensed, permitted and in compliance. It’s been a bit unfair to them to say the least. No one on this end is upset at you, we simply are looking for safety, fairness and kindness,” she wrote.
“For now, continue to set up at your own risk, but trust that we are here to support and not displace,” Esparza wrote.
Esparza hasn’t replied to requests for comment.
Unofficial sellers showed up anyway on Sunday. The market was less crowded, some sellers suspected, because of rain and the threat of ticketing.
Haley Conner has been selling picture frames with cartoons from vintage Playboy magazines for a few weeks at the unlicensed market. She said she’s “angry and sad” that some people want to shut down what she called the “outlaw market.”
She suspects many people come to the market specifically for the unofficial market, which focuses more on vintage goods and clothes than the food-focused farmers market.
“I think a lot of people come here just for this,” said Conner, an assistant director for TV’s “Chicago Fire” who is currently jobless during the writers’ strike.
She would pay a nominal fee to continue selling there, Conner said. Sellers pay anywhere between $35 and $75 a week for permits at the official market.
Connor Luczak was selling screen prints and lithographs from one of the more professional-looking booths at the unofficial market. He’s from the neighborhood and has been selling his art there since last year.
Luczak is open to paying a fee to continue selling. “I’m not opposed to making it be a little more fair for them to understand that,” he said.
Camille Ries, a freelance stylist, sold earrings and shoes from a blanket and small table. It was her second time setting up at the unofficial market, though she said she had better luck last week selling from a makeshift spot close to La Boulangerie on the other side of the market.
She said she didn’t see how the unlicensed market interfered with the official one.
“I’m just a stylist trying to get rid of my stuff,” Ries said. “This isn’t a full-time thing for me. This is me just trying to cleanse and get rid of the stuff that I don’t need.”
At the official market, many vendors said they did not have strong opinions about the pirate vendors.
Mark Petitgoue, owner of No Name Kettle Corn, said he’s “not opposed” to the unlicensed market, which he said “probably adds maybe to the draw of the market.”
Petitgoue, from St. Anne, near Kankakee, said he understands why the city may want to regulate the unofficial market.
“The city is always interested in tax revenue,” he said.
