After making the decision last month to cancel all three of its planned events this summer, the Squamish Street Market hopes to come back in 2021.
Organizer Bianca Peters said it was necessary to call off the whole season as it is too difficult to hold public events while maintaining COVID-19-related physical distancing standards of at least two metres between attendees.
"Maybe we'll be back. Maybe we won't be back. It's dependent on what happens with this virus," she said.
The market offered full refunds to sponsors and vendors when opting to cancel, though many were saddened that the event would not happen this year.
"The vendors were very disappointed. There were some minor sponsors that were very disappointed," she said. "But what they're happy about is we returned every single penny, so it's not like we said, 'Wait until next year or roll it over or here's 75%.'
"We just went, 'Here's 100% of the sponsorship and 100% of the vendor [fee].'"
In the two years since starting the market, Peters said there's typically been an average of 50 to 60 vendors, a mark she was expecting to sustain in 2020.
What Peters was particularly excited for was the opportunity to hold the market on Cleveland Avenue between Winnipeg and Victoria streets.
"We had to prove our merit and we had finally brought it back down to the street," she said.
The street market was scheduled to debut for the season on Father's Day, June 21, while also running on July 12 and Aug. 9.
Peters noted that several event sponsors, such as Norman Rudy's, are facing their own challenges as a result of the pandemic and can't boost such events at the moment.
"It wouldn't make any sense to be organizing an event when we don't even know when businesses are supposed to be opening up," she said. "We don't know what direction we're all going to be going in."
Meanwhile, larger supporters such as Woodfibre LNG and Fortis BC have shifted their charitable dollars to organizations more acutely affected by the crisis, such as local women's shelters across the province, Peters said.
Peters said she's been pleased with the federal government's support for small businesses, but does not anticipate funding from local government. After all, if insurance companies aren't going to help out, she reasoned, municipalities such as the District of Squamish likely don't have the ability either.
"Unfortunately, my insurance company does not cover COVID," she said. "There's no safety net for that."
