WATERTOWN, New York (WWNY) – The Saturday Watertown Farmer’s Market has called Butler Pavilion home for several years.
However, with the weather being warm and dry for most of the summer, the Farmer’s Market has not been the only group to use the pavilion as a home.
As we’ve been reporting over the past couple of weeks, the pavilion is used by many of Watertown’s unhoused, or otherwise referred to as homeless, as a place to stay and a place to party.
The use of the pavilion has lead to a handful of interactions this summer between the unhoused and the market vendors.
We spoke with one market vendors Friday afternoon. She said on several occasions she has had to wake up some of the individuals in the morning to be able to start getting set up for the Saturday Market.
”I was a little nervous about it, because I don’t know who the people are. Once somebody else came, I waited until one of the other vendors came, and then we explained to the people that we were going to have a market there they were pretty good about packing up their stuff and leaving,” said vendor Kathleen Mereand.
The pavilion was scrubbed down Friday morning, as well trash, blankets and other items were cleaned up and thrown away. We also spoke to Watertown Police, they say that although they can not dedicate an officer to watch the pavilion full time, they will make sure to help market vendors in any way they can.
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