The Green Market On India Street To Remain Closed For Summer

The Green Market, a small locally-minded grocer located at 4 India Street, closed early for the season last year after a series of health code violations and will not reopen this summer. The market had not yet satisfied the conditions laid out by the Health Department after last fall’s failed inspections.

Green Market co-owner Tessa Cressman declined to comment for this article on behalf of the business, saying that she would love to speak about the market, but “there are issues that need to be resolved. Unfortunately, I cannot talk with [the press] until that happens.”

On Monday, The Green Market put out a statement regarding the situation on social media that read: “Unfortunately due to reasons beyond our control, we will not be able to open The Green Market at 4 India Street this summer. We are exploring other options to reopen as soon as possible, so please stay tuned for updates.”

The business’s online store remains open.

The market was first cited for health code violations last August when, according to public records filed with the Town’s Health Department, inspectors found that the business was sharing food storage space with a tenant and an unrelated business and was not properly labeling certain products including house-made juices, ready-to-eat food, and bulk storage items like candy and nuts. Over the course of the next two months, the Green Market did not address the violations, continuing to leave its unpasteurized juices unlabeled and not dividing the shared storage space. Repeated inspections also found that sinks and other equipment were not properly sanitized.

As a result of the violations, particularly the unlabeled juices, the Green Market incurred increasingly large fines from the Health Department as the season drew to a close. Facing a 60-day deadline to install walls to separate their storage space, the Green Market opted to close early, buying time to get the required permits and complete the renovations before the summer. In theory, this would have allowed them to open on schedule this year.

But no building permits have been obtained as of yet, at least not according to the building’s property file, and so the building remains closed even as the summer season begins. It will likely remain so for at least some time, as work on installing new walls cannot begin until the market completes the full permitting process.