Council Extends Ban on Indoor Swap Meets

Indoor swap meets will be banned in Glendora, at least until December, while guidelines are established to regulate them, city officials said.

The action taken Tuesday came on the heels of a 45-day ban on so-called multi-retail businesses, imposed after Mehdi Farkhondehpour opened the Swapmeet Club in a local shopping center late last year.

When Farkhondehpour refused to close after the emergency moratorium was passed Dec. 5, the city obtained a preliminary injunction from a Los Angeles Superior Court judge, forcing the business to shut down Dec. 30.

City officials say the business was illegal because there is nothing in the city code that permits indoor or outdoor swap meets. There were also complaints about the impact on traffic and parking in the shopping center, at Glendora and Alosta avenues, officials said.

Glendora City Atty. Cheryl Kane said the judge determined that the swap meet had not opened before the council adopted the moratorium.

Farkhondehpour, however, maintains that he leased the building in the Newberry Shopping Center on Nov. 3 and had a “pre-grand opening” Nov. 29.

Nevertheless, the City Council voted 4 to 1 Tuesday to continue the moratorium for 10 1/2 months while guidelines are established by city staff.

Councilman David Bodley, the lone dissenter, said that if Farkhondehpour can prove he was open for business before Dec. 6, the swap meet should be allowed to continue under a grandfather clause. Orange Tree Antiques, a multi-retail business that has been in operation in downtown Glendora for years, is protected under such a clause, officials said.

Farkhondehpour said that after the city issued him a business license, he saw it as a green light to open and signed a 30-year lease on the building. In the past, it has housed a supermarket and a large home-improvement retail operation. Farkhondehpour said he was not told that swap meets are prohibited.

But Pat Michler, a city business license inspector, said the licensing department is a revenue-generating agency and not a regulatory one and that no applicant is denied a license.

It is the licensee’s responsibility to check with the planning and building departments to determine what businesses are allowed, she said, adding that informational sheets regarding the process are provided.

Meanwhile, Farkhondehpour said, he may have to file for bankruptcy as a result of the city’s actions.

“(The city) has been putting us through hell,” he said. “I feel that knives are stabbing us in the back . . . and someone with power is trying to kill us, business-wise.”

Farkhondehpour said he has invested almost $100,000--including his life savings and money from loans.

Some vendors who leased spaces to sell their wares at the swap meet also expressed disapproval of the council’s action.

Jackie Dryden and her mother, Sybil Fuller, signed a six-month lease and invested about $4,000 in rent and supplies for a gourmet coffee and gift basket booth.

“It’s a rip-off,” Dryden said. “There were people there selling on Nov. 29. How can they give a permit and then pass a law at night banning the business after it’s started?”

Marcicella Delgaldo said the city should allow the business to remain open because her family of nine badly needs the income from the $3,000 that family members invested for party supplies they planned to sell.