Boston's oldest outdoor market is being forced to change its operation.
Generations of Bostonians have been shopping at Haymarket, getting great deals on fresh fruit, vegetables and meat, and many people are not thrilled with this change.
A community benefits agreement allows the market's 34 vendors to lease 1,600 square feet under the next door Hilton hotel for storage, but now Haymarket has been told it has 30 days to remove their setup materials -- its wooden and plastic pallets -- from the sidewalk outside.
“We got a letter over the week saying we need to push your stuff off their property on the weekends. They want their space back," one vendor said. "And where are we supposed to put our stuff?”
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“We’re being told that we have to get the storage off the front of the sidewalk. Ok I’m all for it. But help us find a place to store it. Look, this market's been here a long time," Haymarket's Pushcart Association President Otto Gallotto said. "Don’t hurt the market! Don’t hurt the market!"
People are now petitioning to keep the open air market open by collecting signatures, with over 2,500 gathered Saturday.
“With the cost of everything in this country going up it’s one of the places we can save money,” one man said.
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“It is pretty much the only place where you can get produce at a reasonable price,” another woman shared.
Gallotto thinks an agreement with the hotel could have been done differently.
“What they didn’t do is talk to me. Now they went to a law firm," he said. "Why do you have to go to a legal terms rather than just talk about it and deal with it. I’ll try to do anything we can to fix it.”
