NORWICH – At Tuesday's City of Norwich Common Council meeting volunteers from the Norwich Farmers Market, Sandy Pierce and Jude Smith, requested support from the city for the use of East Park Place to revive the public farmers market.

In 2013, Norwich Business Improvement District (BID) attempted to close the public market, stating it was not financially sustainable. A series of nonprofits volunteered to take it over in an attempt to keep the market alive. Norwich BID eventually did close the Saturday public market permanently in January 2016.

"The public market has never been sustainable, it has always relied on donations of time and money to operate all the nutritional programs for families in need," said Pierce. "It costs the non-profit about $1,000 a year to operate the public market."

When the Saturday market closed, many vendors sought alternate places to sell their products.

"In 2018 they built back up to having 11 vendors, 10 of which were small and medium agricultural producers," said Pierce.