Photo by Frank Lopez | Art lovers at the Downtown Artists Gallery in Fresno have still been able to enjoy ArtHop every first and third Thursday of the month, despite the ban on outdoor street vendors enacted last August.

The streets of Downtown Fresno may be full of pedestrians on the first Thursday of each month once again with the return of the street vendor portion of the popular ArtHop event.

Downtown Fresno Partnership CEO Elliot Balch announced the news last week, with a June 5 launch date.

“The public will continue to experience what they had in the past with more structure and more improvements – things like public restrooms, police presence, code enforcement and basic organizational structure,” said Councilmember Miguel Arias in a statement.

ArtHop drew crowds of up to 15,000 people before it was shut down last August by city leaders, citing concerns about safety, security, logistics and fair treatment of vendors.

Some Downtown Fresno art gallery owners are supportive of the return of the street market, but remain concerned about how it’s been conflated with the actual ArtHop event, which has been taking place for nearly 30 years.

Married couple Piet Ogata and Tim Padilla, co-founders of the Downtown Artist Gallery in Gallery Row at Van Ness Avenue and Mono Street, said the cancellation of the street market hasn’t really affected traffic into the galleries.

Ogata said many people thought ArtHop was the street fair portion rather than the art gallery showings.

“We don’t mind sharing the ArtHop night, but I think the street fair should be called the ‘ArtHop Street Fair,” Ogata said. “There has to be some separation that it’s really about the galleries. I think that’s one of the problems with the Fresno Arts Council had — it ran out of control and the whole town thought that was ArtHop.”

She said it was great that more people were coming downtown, which is what the city wants. She felt the city couldn’t grow with the event, and rather than try to figure something out, they squashed the outdoor portion of ArtHop.

Padilla said there were benefits for galleries with the overflow of people, but there was also less parking for people wishing to go to the downtown breweries.

Padilla said that the “Why Not Wednesday?” street fair event meant to replace the outdoor portion of ArtHop was not as popular.

“Forcing pop-up vendors to be inside disrupted businesses and blocked their traffic,” Padilla said.

Ogata said there is talk of new galleries opening in the Chinatown area of Fresno.

While most people are not buying original art, which can come with a high price tag, Ogata and Padilla said they don’t have to pay overhead for the gallery and have day jobs, so they see their work as an investment into the community.

“Artists that don’t have a gallery and are not represented have a place to show their stuff. We are booked out to 2029 now because there are so many people that don’t have access to being in a gallery,” Padilla said. “There are very few galleries that are accessible to people in Fresno.”

Padilla said there needs to be more galleries in Fresno.

Gallery 654 curators and artists Rhomie Thompson and Subrina Lorenzo have been in the space in Gallery Row since August 2024.

Thompson said they noticed a drop in bodies after the street fair was banned, but there was not a drop in sales.

Galleries pay to be members of the Fresno Arts Council, but pop-up vendors were not paying any money to set up on the streets and sidewalks.

“There was no way to regulate the vendors who just popped-up,” Thompson said. “They weren’t getting permits, they didn’t have business licenses, so it was just kind of a free for all. It grew exponentially to where there wasn’t even art. It became more about food and trinkets.”

While he wished there was more street vendors selling artwork, Thompson was curious who gets to decide what is art and what isn’t.

Lorenzo said the crowds might discourage people who want to come to the downtown galleries.

“Parking is an issue, and when the streets are all filled up with people parking to go drink beer, then the true buyers don’t get a place to park to go into the galleries,” she said.

Thompson said that news media were reporting that ArtHop was over after the street fair portion was cancelled, but he stresses that the actual ArtHop is still alive.