The Kalispell Farmers Market, which has opened the third Saturday of April for 38 years as an annual rite of spring, will not open today.

Organizers say the Kalispell Center Mall parking lot no longer is available for the popular market, but are disclosing few details beyond that.

“We won’t open [Saturday] and we don’t know when we will open,” market board member Bev Medved said. “Maybe next weekend.”

The board is looking for a new location to accommodate about 225 vendors who sell everything from bedding plants to wooden furniture.

“There are a lot of things in the works,” Medved said, adding that vendors — “those are the people we’re obligated to” — were notified and have been asked to check the farmers market voice message daily for any updates. 

She said the farmers market didn’t advertise its opening this year as it traditionally has done.

David Peterson, vice president of Goodale & Barbieri Co., the Spokane-based company that developed and manages the mall, said more information about the mall’s plans will be forthcoming.

The disruption of the longstanding farmers market has upset many vendors who count on the Saturday sessions for their livelihood. Vendors were notified of the change earlier this week.

In addition to the impact they’ll feel, vendors are concerned about the throngs of people who are likely to show up at the mall and find nothing.

Allison Young, an artist who has been a vendor at the farmers market for six years, was upset about the situation as well as the late notice to vendors.

“I’m really frustrated that the communication has been so horrible,” Young said.

Postcards sent to vendors noted the Farmers Market doesn’t have a contract with Kalispell Center Mall, but said to call a phone number for a “possible location change,” she said. “There was nothing that said there would be no market.”

Some vendors, including a couple who live off the grid, don’t have reserved spots but show up in the early morning on Saturdays and wait in line for a chance to sell their goods, Young said. They have no idea the market is canceled today, she added.

The Kalispell Farmers Market incorporated in 1974 and originally set up on First Avenue West between Third and Fourth streets.

The market moved to the Conrad Bank parking lot from 1978 to 1987, when it relocated to the west parking lot of the Kalispell Center Mall.

The tradition reaches back to the 1930s, though, when Kalispell area women would gather every Saturday to sell their breads, pies, eggs, produce, dressed chickens and fancy handwork from 9 a.m. to noon.

Features editor Lynnette Hintze may be reached at 758-4421 or by email at lhintze@dailyinterlake.com.