Swap Meet Vendors Wonder What’s in the Cards for Them : Election: If Stanton voters OK card clubs, 80 entrepreneurs may be required to move from their place of business.

Caught in the center of this city’s fierce debate about legalizing card clubs are about 80 entrepreneurs who face the possible loss of their place of business.

All of them run small shops at the Indoor Swap Meet of Stanton, in a building whose owners have proposed creating a 40,000-square-foot card club. Voters will consider legalizing card clubs in the city in a June 8 special election.

Currently, the building at 10401 Beach Blvd. houses an ethnically diverse group of merchants who sell haircuts, luggage, flowers, bird feeders, clothing, manicures, records and other items and services. They rent stalls by the month. Some run businesses in areas of only 8 by 12 feet.

“I’ve got a line of customers. They all know me. It would be hard to re-establish myself,” said one merchant, who asked for anonymity.

Like some others at the swap meet, the merchant once held a white-collar job but was laid off in the recent economic slowdown.

City voters will decide in the June special election only whether to permit card clubs here. It would be up to the City Council to decide who would be licensed to run such clubs, where patrons pay a fee to play high-stakes poker and card games against each other. On the same day in Cypress, residents will vote on whether to approve a card club at the Los Alamitos Race Course, owned by Lloyd Arnold.

The Indoor Swap Meet of Stanton is owned by Ard Keuilianand others. Keuilian is the leader of the campaign to bring card clubs to Stanton. He and his partners are considering other sites for a club, he said, but the swap meet, a cream-colored building with large tinted-glass windows near Cerritos Avenue, remains his top choice.

“Right now, this is what we have in hand,” he said last week, adding that any other site would have to be bought and developed. The swap meet building could be quickly converted into a card club, he said.

His tenants are nervous. “I don’t want to move,” said a second tenant, who also asked for anonymity. “The location is good” for his business, the tenant said.

Keuilian said he has told his tenants that if he opens a card club at the swap meet, he will move them to another site, perhaps building another swap meet facility.

But some of his tenants doubt that. “I do not think that is true,” said the laid-off white-collar professional. “They want us to tell the newspapers that we want the casino, but we don’t want it.”

Many of the tenants have built up their clientele through word of mouth, distribution of advertising flyers and giveaways at local clubs and restaurants. Because their businesses are small and personalized, the entrepreneurs feel that moving would hurt customer rapport and profits.

At the swap meet’s stalls, prices are sometimes marked but deals are always struck. “Usually (the marked price) isn’t firm,” said Richard A. Fischer, as he looked at price-tagged Indian jewelry, watches and tools at his store on the second-floor of the swap meet. “It’s a good starting point.”

Fischer, 55, started his store two months ago, after taking early retirement at Hughes Aircraft. Formerly a manager, he is now trying to re-create the atmosphere of the general store founded by his grandfather in Fischer’s hometown of Altenburg, Mo.

Fischer’s son painted the store’s signs, which read “Grandpa Fischer’s Retail Outlet.” They depict a man smoking a pipe similar to the one Fischer was puffing on last week.

At a nearby stall, Kevin Tado sells hip-hop music and T-shirts of his own design. “I want to expand my record selling, and then get into producing music,” said Tado, 20, who is also studying at Fullerton College.

Stores’ signs are in Korean, Spanish or English, and merchants speak many languages. Keuilian has added the title “International Marketplace,” to the building’s facade. Flags from 13 nations flap outside in the breeze, each honoring the national heritage of one or more shopkeepers, Keuilian said.

Keuilian’s own family came from Armenia by way of Palestine and settled in the Bronx in 1956. He grew up working at the family gas station, which led him to his present primary occupation of buying and developing gas stations.

When the swap meet opened in 1988, it was very popular. “We had people waiting (in line) around the block,” said Hratch Derderian, one of the managers. There used to be a $1 entrance fee, he said.

But now the second floor is half-empty, admission is free and the building’s owners are looking to make better profits.

Keuilian, 52, envisions a card club drawing thousands of customers and millions of dollars--which he said he would share with the city.

Keuilian said the club probably would have yearly revenue of $20 million, with about a quarter of that in profit. He proposed giving 12% of gross revenue to the city and sharing 12% with his investors. At a Stanton Chamber of Commerce meeting Thursday, Keuilian promised an additional 2% to a nonprofit foundation he said he would create.

The thought of more than $2 million coming annually to the city, which has a budget this year of $8.25 million, already has Councilman Joe V. Harris joining with Keuilian to lead the fight for votes.

On Wednesday, a “Yes on Measure A” campaign headquarters will open at 7936 Cerritos Ave., across the street from the swap meet. Keuilian said he will spend $75,000 of his own money to back the card-club initiative. The campaign will be run by the Broadway Group, a Santa Ana public relations firm.

But the opposition is beginning to organize, too.

Councilman Harry Dotson is heading the drive against card clubs and has met with about six residents who want to campaign door-to-door to defeat the proposal, he said. Dotson has written the ballot argument against Measure A.

And Orange County Sheriff’s Capt. Robert Eason has told the City Council that he doubts the card club could contribute enough money to the city to pay for the increased cost of police patrols. The city contracts with the Sheriff’s Department for police services.

Some neighbors of the swap meet are concerned about having a large card club next door.

“Of course you bring some more money, but more people could bring more problems,” said George Hernandez, 24, a Jack-in-the-Box supervisor who lives in an apartment complex on First Street, behind the swap meet. Hernandez said he would prefer that the area “remain the same.”

But others in the neighborhood disagree. Surat Singh, owner of La Pico Mini Mart across Beach Boulevard from the swap meet, supports having a card club there.

“It will bring some crime, but they will have security too,” he said. “Crime is already too much in some places, even if they don’t have gambling.”