The Port Orchard Farmers Market could be looking for a new home outside the city limits. According to Sheila Jones, president of the Kitsap Regional Farmers Market, the Port Orchard city council’s recent action forcing a new $30 license fee on all businesses has chased away a number of the market’s vendors. The market currently pays the city $405 for a permit to do business on the waterfront from the last weekend of April to the last weekend of October — a total of 27 days.

Many market vendors only make marginal profits, and to them, the fee is just another obstacle in addition to the ongoing conflict over inadequate parking at the market’s current downtown waterfront location.

Jones is reportedly looking into setting up shop at the 200-acre South Kitsap Community Park, located at Jackson and Lund avenues — which is situated just outside the city limits.

The move could be a win-win situation, as the financially strapped park could use the revenue the market would generate, the county has no business license fee and the park offers more than adequate parking.

Port Orchard established a no-fee business-licensing program in 1997, as a method of getting an accurate count of local firms to assure it could get its share of any state or federal money available. But a condition in the original ordinance said licenses would only be free as long as the city didn’t lose money. The city claims it’s lost $71,041.91 since the program began, and has only secured about $6,500 in additional revenue.

With numbers that far off, many business owners question the need for a license program at all — something the city has declined to address.
Council support for imposing the license fee was evenly split. Council members John Clauson, Don Morrison and Carolyn Powers all voted for it, with Robert Geiger, Todd Cramer and Ron Rider voting no. Mayor Jay Weatherill, who once stated there wouldn’t ever be a fee as long as he was mayor, broke the tie with a “yes” vote.

In the meantime, the Farmers Market vendors who do business in the city 27 days a year are left with no option but to pay the same as a business that does business 365, or go somewhere else. “it’s just not fair,” said one vendor who asked not to be identified. “Damn politicians lied again.”.