Canaan — Town officials are suspending efforts to create a community market on Route 4, saying too few people were willing to help run the business.

“… We just didn’t have enough farmers to show up to meetings to make the decisions,” said Mike Samson, Canaan’s town administrator, who launched the project last summer.

Samson initially envisioned a year-round market where shoppers could purchase locally made produce and art and grab a cup of coffee. The shop was meant to generate more foot traffic to the village area and meet the demands of people who wanted to extend the summer farmers market.

About 35 farmers and artisans were needed to make the cooperative financially viable, Samson predicted in August.

Each vendor would own a piece of the business and be responsible for managing the store, purchasing equipment and helping one another. 

At that time, Samson said a total of 26 vendors already had agreed to take part and predicted grant money would be approved to help finance startup costs.

But the project never garnered the support it needed to survive, said Deb Shinnlinger, who was hired to run the market’s cafe.

She interviewed for the position after seeing a community advertisement for the post in October. A former restaurant owner, she quickly worked to put together a business plan.

“All of my initial preconceptions and excitement began to be chipped away when I started to dig into a little more of the numbers and projects being presented on the overall market,” she said.

Samson told Shinnlinger that 15 farmers and 15 artisans were signed onto the project, which required them to form a board and run the business cooperatively.

However, Shinnlinger, who regularly attends the Canaan Farmers Market, said she doesn’t see 15 farmers out on the green every week. That led her to question where the farmers would be coming from for the community market, as well as how committed they would be.

“After the initial interview process and all of that, I quickly realized the number of farm vendors began to seem a little mythical to me,” she said.

Her apprehension was confirmed when some vendors wouldn’t agree to become regular members of the business, leaving it with too few farmers and artisans to operate the cooperative.

“It just seemed like there’s not a lot of structural homework that had been done prior to me coming on,” Shinnlinger said, adding the cooperative should have been formed before the town secured a space for the market.

But there’s still hope for the community market. A group of farmers currently is in talks to move forward with a scaled-back version of the proposal, according to Dale Barney of Barney Insurance Agency.

Barney is one of five owners of 1192 U.S. Route 4, the building that originally was slated for the market and is located right off of the town common.

The building owners still want to see a community market make its home in the building, but possibly in a smaller form.

“It would be great for the community and the downtown village area,” Barney said. “It would be great to have a marketplace that everyone can use. We’re still hopeful.”

Shinnlinger said she’s been involved in some of those talks, but has concerns about the reduced size of the possible cooperative. Part of the charm of the initial proposal was the 30 vendors, which would have cast a much wider net of financial responsibility.

“Ultimately, I think this idea would be fabulous for Canaan,” she said, adding she hasn’t yet decided if she will be involved going forward.

Tim Camerato can be reached at tcamerato@vnews.com or 603-727-3223.