Car Dealers Fume Over Street Sellers
That hallowed axiom of salesmen, “whatever the traffic will bear,” has lost some of its luster among the automobile dealers of Thousand Oaks.
Lately, the traffic has been bearing down heavily on Westlake Auto Center, the city’s upscale auto row. And the dealers want the city to pass a law to stop it.
In this case, “traffic” is to be taken literally, as in the hundreds of motorists and pedestrians who clog the main drag of the auto center every weekend to check out the privately owned cars parked along the street with “For Sale” signs in their windows.
A spontaneous private-party auto market is flourishing right under the noses of the big auto dealers in the sparkling auto center on the eastern edge of the city, just a few paces from the Ventura Freeway.
Cruising for Deals
Every Saturday and Sunday morning, more than a hundred people who are selling their cars park and lock them across the street from the dealers on Duesenberg Drive and then disappear for the rest of the day.
Those looking for a car to buy cruise by slowly, stopping to take down telephone numbers for the ones they like. Private appointments--and deals--are worked out later.
There is almost any kind of car a person could want.
Those lined up Sunday included a 1971 baby-blue Mercedes-Benz 280 SL with 62,000 original miles; a K-5 4X4 Chevy Blazer with chrome wheels and a chrome drive shaft; a ’66 red Porsche 911, completely rebuilt, everything new, $8,750 “obo”; a brown Jeep Laredo, just $900 down and $178 a month; a ’79 Datsun 210 four-speed, runs good; and a green and white ’79 Ford 3/4-ton F-250 pickup with a King of the Road camper, $4,900. Most of the cruisers didn’t appear to be looking for anything in particular.
Browsers drove by slowly and stopped when they saw something they liked.
Interiors Inspected
Others parked their cars and walked, examining the paint and peering into the windows to see the interior of every car along the half-mile auto row.
One man followed his wife in a pickup and stopped to write down the information about any car she liked. She liked a lot of them.
D.A. Youngers of Thousand Oaks was out on the street with his wife looking for a Honda as a second car.
But when he got to the baby-blue Mercedes, he lingered. His wife wrote down the seller’s phone number. Before they could hurry for a phone, however, Youngers spied a used Honda across the street at the Chrysler dealership.
Youngers said the street market was a fine idea for all concerned.
Dealers Glare at Shoppers
“The people need something like this,” he said. “I’ll bet it brings a lot of traffic into that dealer. We probably would not have gone to a Chrysler dealer to buy a Honda.”
But the dealers saw it differently.
While the spontaneous market was going on Sunday, several salesmen leaned against their cars and glared at the shoppers.
“Welcome to our swap meet,” said a young car salesman in a shiny blue suit. He huddled with two other similarly uniformed salesmen and watched shoppers who weren’t coming into their lot.
Several salesmen complained that the impromptu car market has hurt their business by taking away their customers’ parking spaces and making it difficult to test drive cars.
Called a Hazard
Paul Beck Ladin, sales manager of Ladin Lincoln Mercury/Mazda, said he thinks activity in the street will cause a serious traffic accident.
“I don’t think it affects business a bit,” Ladin said. “I think it creates a hazard for my employees and my customers.”
Others admitted the problem goes right to their pride.
“It’s like selling hamburgers in front of a McDonald’s,” said Don Endicott, general sales manager at Ladin.
Endicott said he thinks the private car sellers are stealing the auto center’s advertising and what he called its “freeway exposure.”
“We don’t object to people selling their own cars,” Endicott said. “They’re entitled to do it. That obviously is going to generate more car sales for us. It’s where they’re selling them at.”
Ordinance Proposed
Recently the auto dealers appealed to City Hall for help.
The city, in response, has proposed an ordinance that would essentially create a new parking zone.
In the zone, which would be immediately applied to Duesenberg Drive, it would be illegal to park a car that is advertised for sale.
City Atty. Mark Sellers proposed the ordinance two weeks ago. But the council delayed its vote until Tuesday night to allow a city investigation.
At their request, sheriff’s deputies cruised the street Saturday issuing citations to motorists who double parked or crossed the double center line to get around double-parked cars.
That upset some of the dealers even more. Some of their customers got citations while trying to find parking, they said.
“They’re penalizing the wrong people,” one protested.
In the meantime, the American Civil Liberties Union has gotten involved.
Art Bedard, vice president of the Ventura County chapter of the ACLU, warned the council that he believes the ordinance would violate car sellers’ constitutional right to free speech. Bedard said he would help the sellers file a lawsuit should the ordinance pass.
Two city councilmen who asked for the delay of the ordinance vote said Sunday that they don’t know how they will vote. But they said they believe something must be done.
“I think it’s creating somewhat of a safety problem,” Councilman Alex Fiore said. “In five or 10 minutes Saturday, I observed at least a dozen cars that had to go across the double yellow line.”
“There’s a problem,” said Councilman Lee Laxdal. “There are parents with their kids in the street.”
Both council members said they would consider setting aside other areas of the city, perhaps on city-owned land, for private auto selling.
But they agreed that something should be done to get the cars away from the auto center.
In the meantime, car row may now be a tourist attraction as well.
Steve Gavin of Calabasas took his father-in-law, Al Domanico, from New York out Sunday to look at the cars.
“I like to look at cars,” Domanico said. “Cars appeal to me. I think if I lived here, I’d buy something.”
