Last week, Montclair’s town council unanimously passed a resolution declaring Montclair to be a Fair Trade Town. Montclair is the first town in the tristate area to take this step. Who made it happen? The Montclair Fair Trade Coalition, a group of parents, business owners, professors, clergy, students (high school and MSU) and activists. You also played a part — if you purchased fair trade items or participated in educational events.
Local businesses offering Fair Trade include Terra Tea and Fair Trade Eco Market at 10 Church Street; The Bread Co. of Montclair, 113 Walnut St; Go Lightly, 4 S. Fullerton; Gifts at 16, 16 Church St.; the Montclair Art Museum Gift Shop; and on-line retailer Lotus Jayne www.lotusjayne.com. For more information about Fair Trade, go here.

Liz George is the publisher of Montclair Local. liz@montclairlocal.news

23 replies on “All’s Fair In Montclair”

  1. Next week, Montclair’s town council will unanimously pass a resolution declaring Montclair to be an Oraganic Only-No Bhp-No Plastic Bag-Town.
    And don’t thank me. I like low prices and am not ashamed to say it.

  3. Next week, Montclair’s town council will unanimously pass a resolution declaring TAXES, the only thing Montclair says YES to.

  4. OK, we’ll all drive to neighboring towns to save a few bucks on cheaper food. I like the idea of Fair Trade but it simply doesn’t work all that well in a bad economy teetering on a full-blown recession.
    Don’t believe me? Pay attention the next time you go to Shop-Rite and watch how many people are using coupons and then carting their groceries out to the Lexus SUVs and Volvo wagons.

  5. Shop-Rite?
    That’s your problem, hans.
    Go to Whole Foods and you still see folks paying $3.99/lb for Apples.
    Wait. That was me.
    But they were Organic.
    I did use a coupon for some AAA Duracell’s at CVS, but I carted them back to my VW.

  7. The first time I used a coupon at the Montclair Whole Foods, I could swear the cashier looked really confused. It was like he had never seen one before.

  8. That you ask such a question, jerseygurl, merely indicates how out of things you are in so many more ways even than I’d previously and luridly imagined.
    That Montclair wastes legislative time and energy passing such a resolution also shows how out of things its present mayor and council are. (Which is, however, exactly as I’ve imagined.)

  10. Well Cathar, your response prompted me to look for one. There are no Shoprite stores in Montclair.
    For savings, fair trade, and real food there’s Trader Joe’s.

  11. There’s a ShopRite in West Orange and another in Bloomfield on Broad Street.
    Whole Foods is a great store but their prices are ridiculously high.
    I’m a huge Trader Joe’s fan but limit my trips to TJ’s to once a month because the TJ’s in Wayne and Florham Park are a bit of a drive from Montclair. But the savings are worth spending the $5 or so in gas money.

  12. My response prompted you to look for something which your travels (by bike, by foot, even maybe by BMW) across the length and breadth of Montclair should have already told you?
    Lady, you really don’t get out very much, do you?

  14. Be careful on the roads..People will undoubtedly be swarming to Montclair in droves to reap the benefits of this.

  15. “Drsssing for Pleasure” on Bloomfield Avenue in Montclair is also a Fiar Trade merchant. The distinctive seal denoting this fact can be discerned just over the codpiece on their Errol Flynn line of swashbuckler “play” garb.
    I have a neighbor who has a friend whose nephew’s son was there once. That’s how I heard about it.
    I’m told that the spandex and the leather is hand crafted by Ainos in Japan, using cattle that they suckle themselves from birth and then dispatch, when the time comes, by gently smothering them with feather pillows.

  16. “…gestures like this are…,” walleroo. Grammar, please!
    Similarly noting futile gestures, I’m surprised there wasn’t an item last week about the council’s proclamation hailing those doughty “peace action” folks who are out bathing in self-righteousness every Saturday. (A proclamation I gather Cary Africk voted against, to his great credit.)

  17. That was pretty funny for a Cro-Magnon.
    My occasional error in grammar is meant only to serve as a contrast to my usual standard of excellence.

  18. @croiagusanam
    This just in:
    Dressing for Pleasure reports organic edible undergarment sales up 12% since fair trade announcement. Municipal pragmatism continues sharp decline.

  19. Okay, so is this just a title they want to look cool or are they actually going to make all the stores/restaurants fair trade? Does this mean the three Starbucks will have to close down?

  23. I realize you’re all having a bit of fun with this, but your ignorance is showing.
    Fair trade items are not necessarily more expensive than non-fair trade, and when they are more expensive, they’re typically only marginally so.
    Have you people even been to Terra? There are more reasonably priced gift items there than at a store like Jaffa Jems, which has very nice things–but they’re not fair trade *and* they’re more expensive.
    Fair trade means the difference between people working hard and making a modest living wage and people working hard and remaining impoverished. Fair trade means illegal child labor was not used to make some piece of crap you’d buy at Costco.
    There is a big difference between communism (or even socialism) and the simple, ethical idea that people who work hard should be able to afford the basic things needed for survival.
    I suppose all of you are against the minimum wage as well? Is that a communist idea?
    The comments here (and all the comments in other threads about ‘spreading the wealth,’ etc.) make you sound selfish as well as ill informed. Would you really have the balls to say any of this in real life?

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