Manhattan Beach Certified Farmers Market turns 20
Imagine downtown Manhattan Beach on a Tuesday if there was no farmer’s market. Nary a stone fruit in sight. No homemade pupusas. No smiling parents pulling a toddler sharing a wagon with a bunch of fresh produce, no cyclists balancing a backpack full of goodies, a bouquet of flowers in their handlebar basket. No joyous shrieks of children playing. No songs drifting through the air. It would be like Christmas minus Santa Claus, or Paris without wine and baguettes. It wouldn’t quite make sense. That absence is nearly impossible to picture now, but it was the reality until 2006, when the Manhattan Beach Certified Farmers Market opened its first Tuesday downtown. On Tuesday, July 21, it turns 20, keeping its standing hours of 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. in the Civic Center Parking Lot and Plaza off 15th Street. Kelly Stroman, executive director of the Downtown Manhattan Beach Business & Professional Association, announced the milestone at the July 7 City Council meeting. “It’s really been an incubator for so many small businesses, so many nonprofit groups that have exhibited at the farmers market, and just really bringing the community together in so many different ways,” Stroman said. Maureen…
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