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The twice weekly Livermore Farmers Market has suspended operations in the wake of its management company resigning after a viral video captured one market executive asking a gay, married vendor not to hand out rainbow flags representing LGBTQ Pride Month.
The video shows Dan Floyd, owner of Dan Good Cookies, being confronted by California Farmers Market Association director Gail Hayden while handing out Pride flags from a booth at the June 7 market. The confrontation recorded on video by Livermore Pride Executive Director Amy Pannu was published on YouTube on Monday. In it, Hayden takes off her mask and tells Floyd: “This is Disneyland!” and “The mission of the market is not your political point of view!”
Officials who announced the Livermore market’s temporary suspension on Facebook said that Livermore Downtown Inc. is at work looking for a new management company.
“The occurrence at the market that led to CFMA’s resignation is not reflective of Livermore’s values of inclusion and respect,” officials said in a statement.
A day later, Floyd said Dan Good Cookies has sold out of cookies amid an outpouring of support.
“We’ve had folks coming from Stockton, Los Gatos and San Jose. I think I sold more cookies today than I do in a week.” He puts that number at 10,000 cookies. In one day.
Livermore Pride issued a statement after the organization published video of Floyd and Pannu’s viral moment, suggesting that the incident means the market “may not be a safe space for LGBTQ+ vendors.”
“The hostility toward both Dan and Amy over something as simple as a small free flag being handed out optionally to Market consumers suggests that they were targeted because they were representing the LGBTQ+ community,” the statement said. “Nothing else explains the outright vitriol and weighted language used in this recording.”
On Tuesday evening, after local television stations began airing the story, CFMA released a statement defending itself and its actions at the farmers market, citing safety as the reason for telling Floyd to cease offering flags. “The pointy-tip flags were being used by children as
swords, nearly poking one child in the eye,” CFMA president Doug Hayden said in the statement. But in the video Gail Hayden never mentions safety.
As for what he’d like to see happen at the Livermore market as it moves forward, Floyd said he hopes a “more inclusive” management company takes over.
Calls made and emails sent to officials with Livermore Downtown Inc., the non-profit tasked with replacing the CFMA as the farmer’s market operator, and a message sent to CFMA Executive Director Gail Hayden were not immediately returned. CFMA has managed at least 10 other farmer’s markets throughout the South Bay and East Bay for 25 years.
There was no word on Wednesday when the market might re-open.
