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Pasadena vendor-owner tells council Convention Center allowed a duplicate event, cutting her market from three days to one
Summary
Owner and organizer Jornea West told the council the Pasadena Convention Center assisted another event organizer to run a nearly identical Nutcracker market on her traditional dates, reducing her long-running three-day event to one day and causing financial harm.
Jornea West, owner and organizer of the Bay Area Nutcracker Market, told the Pasadena City Council on Oct. 21 that the Pasadena Convention Center has assisted a competing event that she says copied her market’s name, dates and vendor pool.
West said the Convention Center’s involvement allowed a new event to adopt a nearly identical name and take her traditional weekend dates, which reduced her established market from three days to one. “This conduct is both unethical and, damaging to small local business that has served the community for over a decade,” she said, and asked the mayor and council for assistance.
She said the shortened date range reduces vendor revenue and city rental income, because multi-day events generate more visitor spending and are charged by the day. West told the council she has documentation showing Convention Center staff misled her into changing dates last year so the center could allocate her weekend to the new event. She asked the council to follow up and noted that Mayor Johnny Isabel resolved a similar dispute for her in 2016.
West requested that someone from city staff contact her about the matter. The council did not take formal action or announce a next step on the record during the Oct. 21 meeting.
Her comments were delivered during the meeting’s public-comment period and were limited to a citizen’s request for council assistance rather than a formal complaint filed on the agenda.
