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z | Page 5 Volume 14 Number 28 | 50¢
July 16, 2015
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Downtown Merchants Market returns with more!
Sidewalk sales are the reason most people visit the annual Downtown Merchants Market. It is the only four days that downtown is officially on sale each year.
The most highly coveted week of the year is coming up here in the downtown core. It’s the annual Downtown Merchants Market, July 22 to 25. What makes the Downtown Merchants Market so awesome? There are so many things that it is hard to keep track but a few highlights include Car Free Day, the Taste of Downtown, Battle of the Bands and of course super sidewalk sales extraordinaire. “We started Car Free Day last year,” explains Gay Pooler, general manager of the Kamloops Central Business Improvement Association (KCBIA). “We used to close the streets three different times during the Merchant Market but last year decided to amalgamate the Extended Farmers Market and United Way Community Carnival into one jam-packed day!” On Car Free Day, the two, three and four hundred blocks of Victoria Street are all shut down to traffic. The streets will instead be full with the Farmers Market, area non-profit associations
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who will be putting on fun carnival games for the whole family and area merchants who will be bringing their goods outside and having super sidewalk sales. Combine these things with entertainment and food and you have yourself one great day! This is definitely a day that you will not want to miss downtown. Thursday’s Taste of Downtown is one of Downtown Kamloops’ truly most sought after events. The KCBIA says they start getting phone calls about it in March with people asking ‘When is that food thing?’ How it works is many downtown restaurants put on their thinking caps and serve some delectable samples from either 11:00 am to 2:00 pm, 2:00 pm to 5:00 pm or all day long. Tasters purchase a passport from the CAP Team Visitor Info Kiosk at the corner of 3rd Avenue and Victoria Street and use it as a guide to figure out which restaurants they would like to try. This year they are using a token system. For every passport
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purchase of $15, you receive eight tokens. Additional tokens are only $2 a piece. “We wanted to move to a token system and bring up the calibre of our event,” continues Gay. “Our participating restaurants really go above and beyond with their samples of food. The servings are usually so big that most people can’t even get to eight restaurants, let alone more.” Friday is more of a Care Free Day instead of Car Free where they are featuring sidewalk entertainment, performers and sales. Legendary street performer Mike Battie will be here from Vancouver performing both Friday and Saturday here in the downtown core. The Canadian International Dragon Boat Festival said that many of their guests called them after the event and commented on how much they enjoyed his work, especially the production number! Last but not least, Saturday is Downtown Ka- continued on page 2
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