Η drafting and voting on the Regulation of the Sunday Bazaar of Potamos covers 2 basic necessities: the first and obvious one is that any open-air market, wherever it takes place, must comply with certain operating rules and subject to the provisions of the Act and the second arose after the enactment of the Law 4497/2017, which effectively led to the abolition of the River Bazaar.
Specifically: According to Law 4497/2017, article 38, Sunday flea markets are held only on Sundays and the sale of fresh food products is expressly prohibited. Fresh food products are only allowed to be sold at farmers' markets, which, according to Article 30 of the same Law, are prohibited to operate on Sunday! Therefore, after the entry into force of the above Law, the Bazaar could only operate as follows: either it would continue to operate on Sundays as the well-known «yousouroum» and without any fresh food products (i.e. without the sale of fruit, vegetables, primary sector products, etc.) or it would have to be moved to another day outside of Sunday, in which case it would become a typical market like in Athens or in the big cities. But this would lead to the abolition of the Sunday Bazaar as we know it today and would change its character because in the first case we would see stalls with clothes, shoes and toys, and in the second case it would take place on a working day and therefore without the participation of producers and citizens. Either of the two would change its character and would lead to the abolition of the Bazaar.
Our Municipality, acting methodically and responsibly, managed to obtain the consent of the Ministry of Economy and Development in 2018, so that the Sunday Open-Air Market of Kythera River can continue its uninterrupted operation in accordance with its original founding Law (Decree of 1927) and provided that there is an Operating Regulation in accordance with Article 59 par. 16 of Law 4497/2017.
Based on the above, our Municipality has entrusted to Mr. Spyridon Papacharalambous the drafting of the Draft Rules of Procedure, which has been subject to public consultation for several months. Unfortunately, apart from the stakeholders and few citizens, participation in the consultation was not massive, which should give us cause for concern. On behalf of the municipal groups, only the small minority expressed their views. All comments have been processed by the Municipal Authority and several of the proposals will be included in the final Draft Rules that will soon be voted on by the Board. This is because the nature of the Bazaar has always been to promote local products and their by-products and the conversion of the Bazaar into a place for the sale of, for example, tourist goods, gifts or handicraft products would change its character and would also create issues of unfair competition for the existing shops in the area. The existence of the Bazaar must be in harmony with the local market.
I understand that some of our fellow citizens, who, moreover, told me privately, wished «to keep the Bazaar as it is». But we cannot accept this. First of all because we are not of the mind to let things stand still as the issues of outdoor trade are serious and at any time there could be unpleasant legal implications for both the municipality and the vendors. Most importantly, however, we believe that the Potamos Bazaar can only be upgraded and maintained with a proper Code of Conduct that will be respected by everyone. and will bring order to an issue on which we are unfortunately exposed today. If this logic prevailed in our country in general, today (and this is the most classic example) we would not have to suffer for years to legalise ports that could have been legalised years ago, but unfortunately the view of «leave them as they are» prevailed.
The Rules of Operation protect the vendors, the producers, the Bazaar and our Municipality.
Thank you for your hospitality.
Stratos Charhalakis
