Red tape will prevent the Powell River Open Air farmers’ market from hopping to allowing beer sales.
Colin Palmer, Powell River Regional District board chair, reported at the Thursday, July 24 board meeting that he had attended a meeting of the Paradise Valley Exhibition organization where the matter of beer sales was discussed.
Provincial regulations will now allow beer to be sold at farmers’ markets, Palmer said, but not for consumption at the market.
“It’s not there to drink, but to purchase and take offsite,” Palmer said. “You have to be a qualified, certified, registered brewery to be able to do this.
“So it’s not as if everybody is going to be brewing beer at home and selling at the farmer’s market. There are no homebrews allowed and there is only one vender allowed in many places.”
In Squamish and Whistler they are allowing two vendors, he added.
Palmer said the big discussion at the Paradise Valley meeting was liability insurance and apparently this had been discussed with regional district staff.
Al Radke, regional district chief administrative officer, said one of the prerequisites of being a craft brewery selling wares at the farmers’ market is that the market organization has to be a society. Radke said the stickler in Powell River is that the organization is not a society but they operate under the umbrella of various societies.
“They are trying to work through the legalities of that,” Radke said. “I think it’s going to be a while before we see Townsite Brewery selling its wares down there.”
