COLUMBIA, S.C. — Soda City Market hopes to reopen by mid-June after being closed because of the coronavirus pandemic.
Each Saturday morning, local vendors line Main Street selling goods and creating community. Because of the coronavirus pandemic, the market has been put on hold.
Founder and CEO Emile DeFelice, however, told News19, “Have faith, Soda City is coming back.”
DeFelice has been writing and rewriting plans to open the market to the public, with safety in mind.
“Last week Mayor Benjamin called me and asked me to submit a plan for reopening which I did immediately," DeFelice said.
They have been looking at what other markets have been doing, communicating with the CDC, talking with vendors, and more to make sure that they can get Soda City safe and ready for the public.
Some of the ideas that have been posed are distancing the booths, limiting the number of people per family who can come, and finding creative ways to remind people to social distance.
"By and large we can do a few concrete things, its really up to the general public once we come up with a coherent set off rules."
DeFelice says local business leaders in the community have even offered to test all of the vendors for free and provide a supply of hand sanitizer for the market.
“We’re going to be doing the very best job that we can figure out how to do." DeFelice said, “I imagine we’ll continue to get ideas and continue to refine this plan but from what people are thinking it looks like we are looking at sometime in June.”
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To stay up to date on reopenings and changes, make sure to follow Soda City Market on Facebook.
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