Waverly ice cream kerfuffle

Life can't get much better than that, right? Free ice cream. All's right with the world.

Unless you're the ice-cream giver, who's handing the stuff out to make a point, because he' not allowed to sell it in pints and quarts at the market.

Or you're the farmers' market honcho who banned the sales and feels like the give-away was intended to make him out to be the bad guy.

I've tried to reach South Mountain since a Dining@Large reader tipped me off to the Waverly ice cream kerfuffle last weekend, but no one has returned my messages. It is a dairy farm, so they're probably more than a little busy.

I had better luck with Marc Rey, president of the farmers' market board. 

"I'm rather angry at the man who owns South Mountain," Rey said when I reached him Tuesday.

Back in February, South Mountain applied to the market's board to sell hand-dipped and bulk ice cream along with its other milk products, Rey said. The board approved the hand-dipped sales, but voted against the pint and quart sales because two other vendors were already lined up to sell ice cream or sorbet in bulk, he said.

The market tries not to have too much duplication in specialty products, otherwise the vendors can't do enough business, Rey said.

"Twelve people can have asparagus and all sell out because there's that much demand," he said. "But there's some commodities that there's not so much demand for."

South Mountain could have appealed that decision to the board, but never did, Rey said. So Rey assumed South Mountain had accepted the verdict -- until Saturday, when people who'd just enjoyed a free ice cream started buttonholing him at the market, asking why he was picking on South Mountain.

"We sent him a formal communication today saying, 'We'll still give you a chance if you'd like to appeal before the board, but you are not to incense the customers as if you're being discriminated against,'" Rey said.

South Mountain might be able to make a better case for selling bulk ice cream now, because the guy who was lined up to sell sorbet decided to move back to Trinidad, Rey said. Now there's only one vendor, Brooms Bloom Dairy, sells selling packaged ice cream.

Let's hope South Mountain and the market board can put this behind them and work something out.

And if they can't, let's hope the free ice cream keeps coming.

South Mountain, which makes home milk deliveries, would also like to be in the bulk ice cream business at Waverly Market. Sun photo by Kim Hairston