Some downtown businesses are struggling to get on board with the town market idea council is pushing for.

Town council has sent in a proposal for a downtown market to take place at the Old Creamery building site on Riverside Drive.

A couple of local businesses feel a market isn't the answer to help direct traffic their way.

Owner of Home Ground Heather VanAalst says the market is a great idea, but the location is very inconvenient.

The proposed site for a potential public where the Old Creamery building used to stand.

"I think bringing a market to downtown Okotoks is a great idea. I don't think the location will do anything for downtown businesses though, because where it is you can access it without ever needing to travel through downtown and I think already people make a point to travel around downtown, a lot of cross walks, slow speed limits kind of thing. So they use the other roads to get there and avoid downtown altogether because they actually won't need to come down here."

Head Purveyor at Emporium of Impossible things Melody Enmen says they are frustrated because they are the last to hear of decisions that directly affect them.

"I think what irks me the most is that as a downtown business we always hear things after the fact and there's so many committees, that there's too many committees and no one is coming together as one. It's just so disjointed, we have a Downtown Business Association, we a have a Chamber of Commerce, we have all these steering committees and now they're on to the BRZ, which I'm completely 100 percent against because we don't need a business revitalization zone. We don't have derelict buildings, we're fully utilized," Enmen says.

"Our problem with our utilization is it's full of day-cares and office buildings, not enough restaurants, not enough stores, and we can't change that now."

VanAalst says the community and town council should really just focus on supporting the local businesses.

"I think they just really need to focus on ways to make people come downtown, you can do a lot of things but if they're only applying to a small group of people, that's not gonna help downtown and I think the worse the economy gets and our current state, the more important it is to remind people that we have local businesses. We're not like Walmart and Costco, if they have a bad month, oh well they have a bad month, someone gets yelled at. If I have a bad month, I go out of business."

Enmen says she does understand that if she wants to see change, she has to take initiative to make change within the town.

"We are a very vibrant town that is divided and people are right. If we want the people to come we have to be open longer hours and more days, I get that, but it's a catch 22."

Both businesses plan to extend their work days and hours now that summer is approaching, and have some ideas of their own they are trying to kick start to revamp the downtown summer experience.  

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