Editor’s Note: This story has been updated to clarify who exactly from the city spoke to Bale last Wednesday.
Last Wednesday morning dawned hot and humid at the Overland Park Farmers Market downtown.
The high temperature was again threatening triple digits, and the heat index was projected to spike upwards of 110 degrees. Other than that, it seemed to be business as usual, as patrons visited booths unencumbered by children with schools now back in session.
But quietly there was an unusual issue developing that needed to be quickly addressed.
Farmers’ Market Manager and Recreation Supervisor Kristina Stanley was making her way to the booth of first-year vendor PepperCave and its owner Justin Bale.
Stanley had received information that Bale had multiple concerning posts on the alternative social media platform Gab.
The farmers’ market had been alerted to the posts, which appeared to be blatantly anti-semitic in nature.
Stanley reviewed the posts in question, and on Wednesday, a city official approached Bale and asked him in person if the profile on Gab and the postings in question were authored by him or someone else. On that day, Bale told the official that the profile in question, as well as the postings, did not belong to him.
The market closed at its usual time of 1 p.m. with the heat and humidity being the only topic of conversation.
Vendors packed up, with discussions turning toward the coming weekend, when rain clouds were expected to bring cooler weather for the first time in over a month.
The venue was quiet and empty by mid-afternoon, when Stanley emailed Bale to announce that PepperCave was immediately and indefinitely suspended from all further Overland Park Farmers’ Market events.
No one from the city or farmers market has seen Bale or spoken with him by phone since then.
His responses to media inquiries, and former business partners have come only through text message and email. But the postings to PepperCave’s Facebook and Gab accounts have only become more frequent and overtly anti-semitic in the past week.
In response to inquiries from the Post over the weekend, Bale sent two brief emails.
The first read, “Christ is King.”
The second, in response to a series of questions simply read: “Trying to kick out half the market for wrong-think?”
‘A huge shock’
One year ago, the Overland Park Farmers’ Market was making headlines for a very different reason.
In September, it was named “America’s favorite” farmers market, after more than 10 million votes were cast nationwide as part of the 2022 America’s Farmers Market Celebration.
Beth Fortin’s Little Green Garden has been a fixture at the Market since 2017, selling floral arrangements.
Her family left Prairie Village to take over the family farm in Hardin, Missouri, but they happily make the 80-mile trek back every week to showcase fresh cut flowers, seeds and seasonal Christmas wreaths.
Fortin said she skipped this past Saturday’s weekly market event, due in part to the situation with PepperCave.
“This has been a huge shock,” Fortin said. “I’m still trying to get my head wrapped around it.”
She plans to return this coming Saturday, and describes the vendors at the Overland Park Farmers’ Market as a family.
Fortin found out about the PepperCave situation on Thursday night as she opened up a Facebook group for Overland Park market vendors. She’s not sure if Bale is or was a part of the Facebook group. She said she hopes the group administrator keeps him away now.
PepperCave had no previous violations
Meg Ralph, Communications and Media Relations Manager for the city of Overland Park, said that Bale and Pepper Cave had no prior violations of the Farmers’ Market’s rules and regulations for vendors.
“We have received some informal reports of interactions with PepperCave that made other vendors uncomfortable,” she said, but nothing that rose to the level of a formal complaint.
According to the market’s rules and regulations for vendors, Bale has the opportunity to appeal the suspension within five business days, or by the end of the business day Wednesday.
Given his online activity in recent days, he may be preparing to go down a different path.
On the crowdfunding platform GiveSendGo, Bale began a campaign over the weekend to raise funds for legal fees toward a possible lawsuit against the city of Overland Park.
A statement on the fundraiser reads: “PepperCave was booted from the Overland Park farmers market for exercising the 1st amendment. A lawsuit will be brought against the City of Overland Park and when we win a precedent will be set and the city will no longer be allowed to exclude market vendors or other businesses from operating in the city for not subscribing to judeo-communist views”.
The online fundraiser has a stated goal of $100,000. As of Monday morning, a little over $1,600 had been raised.
‘He was the only [one] I never had one conversation with.’
Stanley, the market’s manager, tries to maintain relationships with all of the vendors at the Overland Park Farmers’ Market.
After providing information to the public last week regarding the suspension of PepperCave, she personally reached out to a number of vendors, including Jewish vendors, to check in and ensure they continue to feel welcome at the market.
One of those vendors was Anna Guberman of Anna’s Bakery.
It’s the second year of bringing her European-style baked goods to the market. She said she’s loved the experience of working at the market, echoing Fortin’s sentiment that the vendors feel like neighbors and family.
But she said one vendor did stand out from the rest. After hearing about what transpired with PepperCave, her prior experience with Bale became more understandable.
“He was right across from me in the pavilion every Wednesday,” Guberman said. “He was the only (vendor) I never had one conversation with.”
Bale’s booth was maybe 10 feet away from theirs, but he made no attempt to cross paths with them, she recalls now, even though there were plenty of opportunities over the summer to simply say “good morning” or make small talk. But it never happened.
“Anyone else who passes by, we just say ‘Good morning’,” Guberman said. “It’s in our blood. You don’t have to buy anything from me.”
The Gubermans don’t hide the fact that they are Jewish.
She said that Bale could have quickly ascertained this fact based based on their booth and what they sell. Guberman stocks challah bread along with other staples of Jewish baked goods every week.
Stanley reached out to the Gubermans to see if they felt safe and even offered to increase security to patrol the area. Guberman assured her that they felt safe and promised to apply to renew their booth for next year as soon as possible.
She doesn’t know exactly what to make of PepperCave but doesn’t blame the city at all for what has transpired.
“We never saw clients at his booth, he just didn’t seem to have any customers,” Guberman said. “We never heard his voice, he didn’t speak to people.”
De Soto vendor drops PepperCave products
Someone who does know Bale’s voice better is Mike Raether of De Soto.
Raether doesn’t have a booth at the Overland Park Farmers’ Market, but he briefly had a business relationship with PepperCave that abruptly ended on Thursday after the anti-semitic posts came to light.
Raether’s Happy Valley Farms has a small storefront in De Soto that offers visitors an assortment of fresh produce, as well as pure honey. It had also been featuring PepperCave products since June.
Raether met and worked with Bale about 10 years ago, while working in another job. He says now he never heard any political sentiments coming from Bale and is disgusted by what has come out.
“I can tell you I sat next to him for two years,” Raether said. “Back in the spring, I saw on Facebook that he had launched this company, and I reached out to him to congratulate him.”
From there, Bale reached an agreement to have PepperCave products sold at Happy Valley Farms, the only retailer in the area to feature Bale’s products.
Bale arrived alone at his store in June to deliver the product. Raether said the in-person encounter was uneventful.
Raether featured a wide variety of spices and products from PepperCave until Thursday morning.
When he learned of Bale’s suspension from the farmers market and the nature of the online postings, he contacted his old co-worker by text message. He started by suggesting to Bale that his Facebook page had been hacked and needed to look into what had been written.
But Raether said that in text message responses, Bale assumed full responsibility for what had been written.
Bale proceeded to go on what Raether referred to as a “tirade.” It was at that moment that Raether began pulling all PepperCave products from his shelves, he says.
“At first I did reach out to him and tell him I was going to throw it all away if he didn’t buy the product back,” Raether said. “Then I decided to just throw it all away. I don’t need the money that bad and I’ll just take the loss.”
Raether estimates he trashed about $600 worth of product that he had paid Bale for. The items would have netted about $150 in profit.
Beyond the financial loss, there’s already been further implications for Raether and his family. He said he has been contacted by an unnamed government agency after his name turned up in discussions online at sites like Gab.
He also said he has forwarded investigators some profane emails he has received over the past week from people defending Bale.
“There’s been suggestions by these people to go on Google reviews and say terrible things about my business,” Raether said. “They saw me on the news saying I was going to throw all of his stuff away.”
The text messages from his former retail partner came to a halt over the weekend. Raether says he will never speak with Bale again.
The market has rules for vendors
The Overland Park Farmers’ Market has a reputation for higher standards than other farmers markets in the region.
John and Cynthia Maddock of goat farm Madd House Hill in Paola participate in five area farmers markets, but John said Overland Park is known for standing a cut above the rest.
“At other markets you just fill out an application and show up,” Maddock said. “This is the only market we’ve been associated with where the staff will come out and visit your operation to see how you treat animals.”
In the Maddocks’ case, that means witnessing how the couple treats their goats. The couple has been at the Overland Park market for three years, showcasing goat milk-based bath and body products like soap and lotion.
Maddock said the much-involved process helps Overland Park ensure that the products featured at the farmers market are meeting high quality standards every year.
Stanley and Ralph with the city both confirmed that Overland Park Farmers’ Market staff met with Bale and sampled PepperCave products in the spring, prior to him being accepted for the first time as a vendor for the 2023 season.
“Market staff do a combination of farm visits and in-person meetings with applicants for quality control purposes,” Ralph said. “Primarily, the application and acceptance process focuses on ensuring vendors can provide farm fresh products and/or artisan foods and can meet the requirements of the rules and regulations.”
The rules and regulations that Ralph refers to can be found on the Farmers Market website. It is a 29-page document that outlines all of the dos and don’ts for vendors.
Fortin and other vendors said they don’t know of another instance where a vendor has been removed so swiftly and not invited back.
Ralph said it’s investigating PepperCave for a potential violation of the market rules that cover harassment and threatening behavior.
There’s nothing explicitly in the rules and regulations to suggest that the city would be monitoring a vendor’s business activities away from the farmers market, nor does it mention anything pertaining to a vendor’s online activities.
Sarah Salzman is also in her first year at the market with her company Wild Alive, and has served on the board of the Lawrence Farmers Market for the past two years.
She said the Lawrence market has protocols in place for vendor misconduct, and she supports Overland Park’s decision to act swiftly when the posts attributed to PepperCave’s owner were brought to light.
Maddock of Madd House Hill said this past Saturday was a somewhat unusual day at the Overland Park Farmers’ Market.
The weather forecast for cooler weather turned out to be correct, and it stayed overcast the entire day with rain coming and going throughout the morning.
“Attendance was down, mostly due to weather,” Maddock says. “I did notice a number of people were aware of what had happened and there was a lot of shock and discussion about it. Everyone’s very disappointed.”
Despite that disappointment, Maddock and every other vendor contacted by the Post for this story stated without hesitation that they would be renewing their application to return to the market for 2024.
Ben McCarthy is a contributor to the Post and other publications in the Kansas City area. He can be reached at ben.c.mccarthy@gmail.com with questions, comments and story suggestions.
