Shibaguyz
The answer that TR found out for us was that there was an incident that prompted the manager of some of the markets to not allow dogs. As the manager of the market, she had to make her best call at the time and I’m not going to second guess her on that.
On the other hand, we know what happened and why it happened and it was an extreme case that has not been duplicated for a long time. What happened was someone was trying to train a fighting dog by taking their dog to local parks and public places then have the dog “bait” on the other dogs that were there. These particular people were testing their fighting dog’s instincts to see if they would attack on sight… and they did.
The same people were spotted at two different farmers markets (WS and U District) and three different dog parks that we know of.
Again, if I was the manager of the market and it was my responsibility for the safety of the general public AND I didn’t know anything about dog behavior, I might have made the same choice. I obviously don’t agree with the choice but it is up to her if she wants to change the policies of her market she has been put in charge of and we respect her choice as a manager (not an easy job).
We just happened to go to the WS market today as well (first time in over a year) and saw all the dogs sitting with their people around the perimeter of the market… it was kind of odd looking. Some people on the corner standing next to us at the light even commented on how strange it looked.
All that said… we really go to the Ballard Market for sentimental reasons now because we are such good friends with some of the farmers and other vendors. We meet up with other regulars there and really enjoy the social aspects of that particular market. At this point, even if the manager of the WS Market were to change policies, I think we would still probably go to Ballard.