Northside Market in Fredericton announces permanent closure

The Northside Market in Fredericton has announced it will be permanently closing because of the COVID-19 outbreak, leaving dozens of vendors without a space to work out of.

Many of the vendors found out about the permanent closure in a Facebook post that was published Thursday night.

Peter Perry, the owner of the weekend market, was not immediately available on Friday to talk about the decision.

"The market made absolutely no attempt to contact the vendors personally and discuss the situation," vendor Stephen Rae, owner of Rocket Burger in Fredericton, said Friday.

The market has been closed since the province declared a state of emergency March 19 because of the coronavirus.

A few weeks ago, Rae said, businesses were toldthey needed to retrieve their equipment from the market for safety reasons.

So they did.

'Nothing seems to be adding up'

But Rae said he never expected the Northside Market to permanently shut its doors.

"It was strange but we were asked to remove all of our equipment from the market itself."

At that time, there were also rumours circulating that the market wasn't going to reopen. Rae said he tried to get more information from the market itselfbut didn't receive any response until he saw the announcement over Facebook.

"I feel like nothing seems to be adding up in this scenario."

Rae said there are about 50 local vendors and roughly100 employees who rely on the Northside Market each week.

He's hoping another market will open up for businesses, asmany vendors are struggling to find a new home.

"A lot of those vendors, that was their only source of income."

'Hardship and uncertainty'

Rae said he's been at the Northside Market for four years but recently opened up a business in downtown Fredericton inAugust.

"I'm one of the lucky few who have a business outside of this," he said.

In a Facebook post, the Northside Market said the cause of the closure wasthe COVID-19 pandemic.

"We are all unsure how long it will take to be back to normal or what normal will be," said Perry.

"We are all experiencing hardship and uncertainty."

The post went on tothank vendors and patrons who have been supporting the Northside Market since it opened.

The market's Facebook pagehadbeen taken down as of Friday morning.