Richmond Hill loses Tastes of the Hill festival and farmers market this year

'The news came as quite a surprise to me,' says Coun. Karen Cilevitz

Yorkregion.com
May 23, 2019
Sheila Wang

This coming summer may become a little less fun for Richmond Hill’s eventgoers as two popular annual community events won’t be returning this year.

The Liberal learned on May 17 that a farmers market and Tastes of the Hill Multicultural Festival are not happening in Richmond Hill.

Those who loved shopping at the market on Sundays in the summer may need to look somewhere else for their fresh, locally grown produce this year.

“Due to the availability of other farmers markets in Richmond Hill and surrounding area and the limited resources available to undertake this seasonal event, we made the difficult decision to discontinue the city-organized farmers market,” spokesperson Meeta Gandhi said in an email.

She added that the city came to the conclusion after a careful review of the event at the Elgin Barrow Arena, taking into consideration attendance, cost, vendor participation and the number of similar events in and around Richmond Hill.

The decision was tabled during the deliberation of the operating budget for 2019 when the city excluded the funding for the farmers market -- $8,000 -- from the budget for the cultural services, according to the 2019 community service department operating budget.

“The news came as quite a surprise to me,” said Ward 5 Coun. Karen Cilevitz. She said she was not aware of the decision until seeing a social media post from a reporter from The Liberal.

“It’s unfortunate we were unable to properly inform our residents of these two issues prior to it becoming known through a social media post.”

Ward 4 Coun. David West, on the other hand, said he knew this "was likely to happen" because the weekly event that took place in the summer from 2015 to 2018 was "not well-attended."

"The original intent was to help bring activity to the Village Core; however, the village businesses were not really participating," he said.

There are a few similar events in the area that the city encourages residents to visit, such as Hillcrest Farmers Market, the Aurora Farmers Market & Artisan Fair and York Farmers Market, Gandhi said.

Staff will be revisiting the farmers market through future budget discussions, said Cilevitz. She said she hopes the city will re-establish it and make it an “annual staple” of the city events.

Another blow to food lovers is the discontinuation of the well-received Tastes of the Hill, a large fundraising event founded by former regional councillor Vito Spatafora 14 years ago.

For more than a decade, the festival brought in thousands of people every summer to celebrate diversity and multiculturalism with live entertainment, food and arts.

“The costs were entirely covered through sponsorship dollars raised by the previous councillor,” Gandhi said, noting the festival is not a city-organized event and therefore not associated with the funding from Richmond Hill.

"It’s a shame that it’s not being carried on," said Spatafora, who retired last year after serving for 24 years in Richmond Hill. "I spent a better part of 14 years putting Tastes of the Hill together, and I left it in good condition. I left them -- the town -- with sufficient funds to carry on for another season (in 2018)."

His annual festival raised more than half a million dollars for over 20 local charities.

“I have been informed by staff that the probability of establishing a similar version of this event hosted by the city is undergoing discussion,” Cilevitz said.

Tastes of the Hill was also named among the top 100 festivals in Ontario in 2018 by Festivals & Events Ontario, along with Richmond Hill’s Canada Day celebration and Ribfest.

The other two award-winning family-friendly festivals will be running as usual, Gandhi said.