If you were designing a grocery store to be more health conscious during this pandemic, how would you do it? You’d enable a constant flow of fresh air to disperse microdroplets from coughs and sneezes. You would widen the aisles and spread out the shelves so that shoppers could easily get around each other using social distancing. You would, essentially, create a wide open market — a farmers market.

And yet, the Pendleton City Council has chosen to shut down the Pendleton Farmers Market, in an abundance of caution regarding public gatherings. Gov. Kate Brown has issued a specific list of businesses required to close and farmers markets do not appear on it. Grocery stores are specifically allowed. The city council needs to stop looking at the farmers market as a public event and see it for what it is — a grocery store that happens to be outside.

There are numerous options for increasing health safety at the market. Limit the number of people who can enter at a given time, as Walmart does. Require face masks for shoppers and vendors. Instead of customers handling produce, let a gloved vendor bag up each purchase. The market could even be set up for drive-thru purchasing with preordering by phone. If this means relocating from Main Street to a larger space, such as the convention center parking lot, patrons would support the move. Customers also need to shift their mindset about the market this year: designate one shopper per household, rather than making it a family outing (in fact, that goes for Safeway, too).

A reversal of the city council’s decision would give residents more fresh food options, while providing much-needed economic support to local farmers. Several year-round farmers markets in Portland continue to operate, following social distancing guidelines, and many seasonal farmers markets across the state are gearing up to open in May. Pendleton hosts one of the earliest markets in Oregon. Why not be among the first to show the rest of the state how to do it safely?

If you agree, your city councilors need to hear about it.

Do you have a point you’d like to make or an issue you feel strongly about? Submit a letter to the editor or a guest column.