Sale or No Sale: Santa Ana Split on Continuing Its Swap Meets

The homemade “No Parking” sign dangling from an orange cone in front of the Van der Roest home in Santa Ana on Saturday looked official.

So official, in fact, that after Teresa Gonzalez parked her Oldsmobile there, bustled her three daughters out and set out for the swap meet at Eddie West Field in Santa Ana, she had second thoughts. Gonzalez went back and moved the car.

Chalk up one small victory for Susan and Martin Van der Roest, who along with others in the Washington Square Neighborhood Assn. want to close down the weekend swap meet near their homes as well as another smaller swap meet at Rancho Santiago College.

The residents complain that the open-air market next to the football field creates parking problems and brings noise and litter to their neighborhood.

Streets Calm and Quiet

But by Saturday afternoon, less than 10 cars were parked on each street across from the field. The streets, several of which were blocked off by police barricades, appeared clean and quiet.

At the swap meet, Fidel Luna was busy hyping pork rinds, salsa, pickles and tostadas just as he has for the past five years.

“The swap meet doesn’t hurt anyone, and it helps the whole city,” Luna said. “It’s part of the life of the people of Santa Ana.”

Both sides of the debate are gearing up for a City Council meeting July 6, when officials will consider the fate of the markets at both Eddie West Field, which is near the Civic Center, and at Rancho Santiago College.

The neighborhood association, which represents about 750 homes, has polled most residents and found that the majority want the markets closed, Susan Van der Roest said. People who park by their homes have left litter and dirty diapers and have been rude, she said.

“We’ve even found them picnicking in our front yard,” she said.

While the association is sending out flyers urging residents to attend the upcoming council meeting, vendors also are encouraging each other to be there, said shoe salesman Frank Ruvalcaba. And Norton Western Ltd., which operates both swap meets, reported collecting about 16,000 signatures in support of them.

For some vendors, such as Jesus Barrios and his family, who sell shoes at Rancho Santiago College each weekend, the 60-booth swap meet provides much needed additional income.

“This is our livelihood,” said vegetable vendor Rosalino Pineda.

‘Cheaper Than at the Store’

And for the shoppers, said Laura Melendez, hired by Norton Western to gather signatures, “it’s much cheaper here than at the store.”

On July 6 the council will consider whether to extend Norton Western Ltd.’s lease of the city-owned field. The lease expires Sept. 30. The council also will consider an ordinance that would permit swap meets and other commercial activities on land zoned as open space. (The city’s Planning Commission voted last month against the ordinance.)

Debra Fritz, a Norton Western representative, said the swap meet, which has about 350 vendors, attracts about 5,000 people on Saturdays and as many as 7,900 on Sundays. It generates about $600,000 a year for the city, she said, although city officials have estimated the figure at about half of that.

To the people who live in the well-kept neighborhood north of Eddie West Field, the swap meet that began in 1979 with only a few vendors has outgrown its site. And they fear the swap meet at Rancho Santiago College, which attracts 1,000 people at most on Sundays, will grow if the Eddie West meet is shut down and create problems for those neighbors, Susan Van der Roest said.

But Ramon Ayala, who lives directly across from the Van der Roests on Freeman Street, said he has had no problems with the swap meet, which primarily attracts Latino shoppers.

“I don’t think it’s necessary to close it because they haven’t bothered us,” said Ayala, who described his neighborhood as predominantly Anglo.

Richard Norton, president of Norton Western, last week said, “The bottom line is . . . the neighbors are white Anglo-Saxon Protestants who don’t want Hispanics in the neighborhood.”

A Quick Rebuttal

The statement was quickly rebutted by Susan Tully, president of Santa Ana Neighbors for Excellence, which is spearheading the fight. “The bottom line is they should never have been permitted to go in there. . . . It’s an improper zone for a swap meet,” she said.

For residents such as Ayala, the real parking crunch in the neighborhood is during the week, when many who go to city and county buildings by Eddie West Field use their streets for the free parking.

Joe Rodriguez, who moved to the neighborhood about two weeks ago, said he hasn’t taken sides on the issue. But on the weekends, he said, the streets are less crowded than during the week, when people “park so close to our driveways we can’t get out.”