Permit for Kobey’s Swap Meet Renewed

The popular Kobey’s Swap Meet at the San Diego Sports Arena will be allowed to continue operating despite complaints about traffic congestion, the San Diego City Council decided Tuesday.

Council members voted unanimously to renew a conditional-use permit for the event, although the city Planning Commission had recommended denial of the permit earlier because of complaints from neighboring businesses about parking shortages and traffic tie-ups on Sports Arena Boulevard.

Particularly troublesome have been the days when the swap meet is in operation and there are also matinee or nighttime events inside the Sports Arena. The result is a crush of cars that overflow into other business parking lots and anger nearby merchants, say city officials. There were 17 such “dual” events last year, city statistics show.

To ease that problem, advocates for Kobey’s promised to guarantee at least 750 additional free parking spaces for their patrons when other events are scheduled for inside the arena--a number of parking slots calculated to cut down on the overflow.

Advocates also stressed that income from the Sports Arena--a minimum $100,000 a year under a proposed rental agreement--will help finance the operation and improvements at the facility. Others said the swap meet should be allowed to continue because it provides a start for small businesses and jobs for high school students.

Some major opposition to giving Kobey’s the conditional use permit was dropped at the last minute when a representative from Dixieline Lumber said his company would not fight the new permit.

The swap meet currently operates Thursday through Sunday, and it covers about 13.3 acres in the western and northwestern portions of the Sports Arena’s parking lot. The number of sellers at the meet varies from 100 to 300 on weekdays to 900 to 1,200 on weekends, according to a city report.

“If anything’s wrong with the Kobey’s Swap Meet, it is suffering from success,” said Mayor Maureen O’Connor, who said she is a customer of the meet. “I think the neighborhood is suffering from success. Hopefully, we can take care of the traffic congestion.”

Council members approved the new permit, but called for a review of traffic and parking problems in six months.