Swap Meet Vendors Protest Planned Rent Hikes : Dispute: Brief but tense standoff at fair board meeting ends when parties involved agree to discuss reductions.

About 200 swap meet vendors, irate over planned space-rent increases, staged an angry protest at Thursday’s meeting of the Orange County Fair Board.

Police stood guard during a brief standoff at the Orange County Fairgrounds that dissolved when fair board members agreed to discuss the increases with both the vendors and the swap meet operator at a future meeting.

About 100 vendors who display their wares at the Orange County Swap Meet filled the fair board’s small meeting room to capacity. Another 100 picketed outside, demanding entrance. Orange County sheriff’s deputies attempted to keep order outside.

“The group outside is threatening to storm the building,” fair board General Manager Norbert Bartosik said during the tense meeting.

However, the standoff ended peacefully after all sides in the dispute agreed to discuss within the next few weeks a possible reduction of the rent increases.

“I think it’s going to be OK,” Dean Brown, a representative of the Orange County Marketplace Merchants Assn., told fellow vendors after the fair board meeting ended.

Nonetheless, some vendors said they fear the worst. At least one vendor predicted that he would have to quit within the next two months.

The dispute revolves around rent increases scheduled to take effect May 1. Officials from Tel Phil Enterprises Inc., which leases the land from the fair board, said that they were forced to raise rents an average of 40% because of a new contract with the state. The state’s new lease demands a 100% increase in money from Tel Phil, according to company spokesman Jay Clark, who added that the company had no choice but to increase rents.

But vendors, who are represented by the Orange County Marketplace Merchants Assn., contend that such rent hikes would be financially ruinous.

David Dudman, president of the merchants group, told fair board members that the recession already has greatly reduced business. So far this year, he said, income for swap meet vendors is down a third from what it was during the same period last year. That follows a decline of 40% in vendors’ income for 1992 and a drop of 33% in 1991.

“Unless the fair board understands this crisis, educates itself and implements satisfactory remedies, the result for (the swap meet) will be disastrous,” Dudman predicted.

Although a Tel Phil spokesman said the average rent increase is 40%, Dudman told the fair board that the rent hikes range from 50% to 88%. He said that swap meet vendors cannot survive such rent increases.

Eli Coloma, who has been selling baskets at the swap meet for the past 15 years, said that he will have to go elsewhere to make his living if the rent for his space is increased. He said his spot, for which he paid $820 to $1,100 a month in the past, will now cost him $2,300 a month.

“I don’t know what they are trying to prove,” Coloma said. “They are not taking into consideration there is a recession and it is hurting people. . . . $2,300 is a lot of baskets.”

While much of the anger has been aimed at the fair board, its members explained that they are only land caretakers and that the controversial lease is between Tel Phil and the state government in Sacramento.

Tel Phil, which has operated the swap meet since its beginning 23 years ago, last February won the right to continue operating it after the fair board put the contract out to bid.

Under the terms of the new agreement, Tel Phil will pay the fair board 51% of its revenue from food and beverages, including beer and wine, and 38% of its revenue from space rentals. Under the old lease, Tel Phil paid 15% of its concession revenue, 27% of beer and wine sales and 33% of its income from space rentals.

Fair board officials claimed that the decision on fee increases was beyond their control. Nonetheless, they agreed to meet with Tel Phil and vendor representatives to see whether a rent reduction can be negotiated. No meeting date was set, but a Tel Phil official later said that he expects the session to be held within the next two weeks.

While speaking with other vendors after the meeting Thursday, Coloma said that he knows the state needs money and that he would even be willing to pay a moderate rent hike--but not 50% or more.

“This is getting ridiculous,” Coloma said. “I probably will stop selling in May.”