Baker sues Santa Fe Farmers Market for discrimination

Suit: Entry blocked for ‘woman of color’

SANTA FE — The Santa Fe Farmers Market and its board of directors are being sued by a local baker who maintains the market won’t let her sell her pure gluten-free products because “she happens to be a woman of color.”

According to the discrimination complaint, Dionne Christian — whose online photographs suggest she’s AfricanAmerican — has been doing business in Santa Fe as a baker and restaurateur since 2003.

She opened the Revolution Bakery last year and says she produces only gluten-free products. But even though she sells her goods at farmers markets in Albuquerque, Eldorado and Los Alamos, she hasn’t been able to get into the Santa Fe Farmers Market, her lawsuit says.

Christian applied to be a vendor there in August 2013, “but her application was blocked for no legitimate reason and denied,” the complaint states. She claims she was told that she had to grow her own gluten-free grains in order to be considered, even though no other vendor is held to that standard.

In addition, Christian alleges she has been denied the opportunity to argue her case with the market’s board of directors. She is suing the board for failing to comply with its own bylaws and for denial of her right to free speech.

“Plaintiff is suffering losses of income, loss of opportunity and is convinced it is because she is a woman of color and for no other reason, except the possibility of jealousy of certain individual vendors who do not want to see Plaintiff succeed,” the complaint states.

The document notes that another vendor at the market purports to sell gluten-free goods made at a commercial kitchen lacking safeguards for cross-contamination. That vendor doesn’t always sell out and doesn’t sell breads or bagels, so “customers are faced with purchasing stale gluten-free pastries.”

Christian says her goods are of superior quality and her bakery sells out daily. The suit says more than 1,000 people have signed a petition supporting her position.

Efforts to reach Christian on Thursday were unsuccessful. Her attorney did not immediately return a phone message from the Journal. The general manager of the Santa Fe Farmers Market said Thursday he was not aware of the lawsuit and referred questions to the board president, Brian DeSpain, who also did not immediately return a phone message.