College of the Desert and Palm Springs Village Fest vendors find a new home

After a year long closure of street fairs, vendors from College of the Desert and the Palm Springs Village Fest are moving locations for a new outdoor market. 

News Channel 3’s Dani Romero has more on how the new move is helping local businesses  survive. 

“It was like riding a bike," said Scott Shapiro, owner of Best Deals. "I got out there and I started doing it. It just came back.” 

Scott Shapiro described the feeling he felt when he reopened his booth at Republic Markets in Palm Desert.

“We haven't worked in a year. It's been hard and challenging," said Scott Shapiro, owner of Best Deals. "We applied for everything that the state and the government offered and for whatever reason, some of us fell through the cracks.” 

Merchants like Shapiro have been waiting for a lifeline after College of the Desert postponed their street fair until the campus reopens.

“The rumor is optimistically, they are looking for an October 21 reopening," said Shapiro.

Amid the uncertainty, displaced vendors from COD and Palm Springs Village Fest have found a new home. It’s on the west side of Costco on Monterey.

With help from the city of Palm Desert and Monterey Shore Business Park, this new outdoor market is open every weekend through at least mid-June. 

It had been year since Barb Stebbins saw her customers. 

“It was emotional the first weekend we were there because the customers that did come out that wound up in the valley for the season knew that they made it through COVID," said Barbara Stebbins, owner of theKitchenoutlet.com. "Everything is okay and we made through COVID.” 

Stebbins said they are able to do this safely. 

“We're smaller, but we're all together and we're all COVID compliance," said Stebbins. "We're socially distanced. Everybody has to wear a mask.” 

This open air shopping market is helping the vendors survive through the pandemic closures. 

“I always come home with more than I started with, but they don't compare to College of the Desert numbers, but like I said, we have smaller rent," said Shapiro. "We have smaller payroll and like fishing. we always come home with fish.” 

We reached out to organizers from College of the Desert, they sent us this statement.

"Throughout the last challenging year, the Street Fair Committee and leadership have continued to monitor the COVID-19 situation and mandates from public health officials and provide regular updates to our merchants.

While we are encouraged by the vaccine rollout and downward trend in new cases, we do not yet have a date to reopen. We are working closely with College leadership on plans to reopen and we hope that will be soon.  We are encouraged to see other events in our area that enable the merchants to work and sustain their businesses.

We understand the difficulty this situation has caused for merchants. We hope when the Street Fair returns it will be in partnership with the many merchants who have helped make the event so successful. We should also remember that the inspiration for this event is the College of the Desert, whose students, programs and services are supported by revenue from the Street Fair. Given that, we hope to see our merchants and customers again very soon, when it is safe to do so."

We also reached out to the city of Palm Springs about Village Fest, they sent us this statement.

"Nothing has been determined yet. There has been discussion VillageFest may start up again when we reach the orange tier."

The outdoor market is located at Monterey Shore in the Costco shopping area, 72700 Dinah Shore Dr.

The event takes place Fridays through Sundays today through June 14, from 10am-3pm.

For more information, click here.