NEW ORLEANS -- Vendors at the French Market are gearing up for a battle with the Board of Directors over how space is rented out at the city-owned facility.
For 20 years, vendor stall assignments have been based on tenure, but the French Market Corporation's new director wants to change parts of that policy.
The French Market is a New Orleans landmark, full of vendors selling their wares.
For decades, the French Market Corporation has assigned vendors to their stalls based on tenure or seniority.
“We cannot go forward in attracting new vendors, attracting new visitors, attracting new business, if the stagnation of same old, same old, same old is always down there,” said Frank Pizzolato, executive director of the French Market Corporation.
The current policy allows vendors to keep their tenure and their space as long as they don't miss more than 28 consecutive days setting up shop.
“They can be in Toronto, San Francisco having other markets. Because they only have to be in the city of New Orleans and having a prime location 12 days out of the year,” said Henry Julian, attorney for the French Market Corporation.
“Deal with that particular problem with those people. This is a wide net that you're hoping will stop that problem, and it's encompassing too many people who aren't doing anything wrong,” said Dana Tharp, one of the vendors sitting on a corporation subcommittee.
According to Pizzolato, another problem is vendors subletting their space, allowing new vendors in while those with more tenure have to wait in line.
But without tenure, vendors argue, the positioning would jeopardize their livelihoods.
“Without the tenure process, there's no way of being fair really,” said Ysuf Al Naziat, another long-time vendor.
“If you're gonna be able to offer better sites, progress, promotion to the lower tenured people, that's how it works. You miss a weekend, you go to the end of the line and you start over,” Pizzolato said during the subcommittee meeting Tuesday.
The vendors in attendance drowned out the rest of his comments by loudly “booing.”
The eight proposed changes to the tenure policy will be the subject of another meeting to refine them before the Board of Directors' February board meeting.
Pizzolato said he is hoping the final changes in policy will take effect March 1st.
