Kyoto Coffee has been dismissed from the Saturday farmers' market at Morrow Park, according to the owner's Facebook account.

"Sadly my application for Saturday Peterborough market was 'declined,'" Tracy Cosburn wrote in a public Facebook post on Tuesday.

"I'm in good company as many others were too," she writes, although doesn't identify any other dismissed vendors.

Every season, vendors apply for stalls in the market; the deadline to apply for the indoor winter market in the Morrow Building was Oct. 17.

On Tuesday Cosburn wrote on Facebook that her application was turned down but that she's still doing business from her location at 2621 Lakefield Rd., just north of Trent University, in Selwyn Township.

At her caf� on Lakefield Road on Wednesday, Cosburn did not want to comment for this story.

Wade Matthews, the operations manager at the Peterborough Farmers' Market, couldn't be reached for comment on Wednesday. Neither could Cindy Hope, the chairperson of the board.

Cosburn wrote on her Facebook page that Kyoto Coffee has been at the farmers' market for nearly 15 years.

One other vendor was turned away from the market in June: Russet Preston of Rhea-lly Emu-zing Ranch, which offers emu, rhea, chicken, duck and quail.

In an interview on Wednesday, Preston confirmed she'd been evicted in June but didn't say why.

Meanwhile she wrote a letter to fellow vendors at the market in late May inviting them to a meeting at Kyoto Coffee on the Lakefield Road where they could discuss how the market "is steadily going downhill."

Preston wrote in the letter that the market had decreased by 30 stalls and that vendor fees were being increased even though vendors had seen no financial reports from the board from 2018.

Since 1984 the market has been operated by the Peterborough and District Farmers' Market Association (PDFMA), which has defined "local" food as "Ontario-grown."

In recent years there's been tension there between resellers and local farmers: Some resellers buy produce from the Ontario Food Terminal in Toronto and sell at farmers markets without necessarily telling the customer they didn't grow the food themselves.

Later the PDFMA implemented new signage meant to indicate which farmers grow all their own produce and which "support" other farmers by selling for them.

In 2018, seven local farmers were evicted; the PDFMA said it was over harassment complaints.

The ousted farmers then started the Peterborough Regional Farmers Market at the courtyard of Citi Centre, which sells nothing but locally grown or produced items.

In winter, it moves the market indoors to the lower level of Peterborough Square.

Now the city is looking for a new operator for the farmers' market for three years starting in May and the two rival farmers' market operators are the only ones who applied.

The deadline for application was earlier this month.

The city, which owns the land and rents it to the market operator on Saturday mornings, will make a decision by Dec. 4.

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joelle.kovach

@peterboroughdaily.com