HUNTINGTON BEACH : Council Will Vote Again on Swap Meet

Less than a month after it rejected plans for an indoor swap meet at a vacant industrial building, the City Council agreed last week to reconsider its vote.

Councilman Victor Leipzig, in an unusual move, asked his colleagues to reconsider the proposed swap meet.

The council had voted 4 to 2 at its Aug. 1 meeting to turn down the request by Frazer Tremblay, an operator of swap meets in other U.S. cities and Canada.

But Leipzig said his vote against the operation, which was to be housed in a 212,500-square-foot building at 555 McFadden Ave., was a tough decision.

“It was a painful vote for me because I hate to say no to a new business,” Leipzig said. The retail operation was expected to provide the city with tax revenue of about $200,000 a year.

Leipzig said that he didn’t vote against the proposal because he didn’t like the idea. “I was concerned about its impact at the particular site,” he said.

The project drew opposition because of concerns about the problems that the retail business might cause in the industrial neighborhood.

Some industrial business owners and property owners near the proposed site, as well as officials from Huntington Beach Mall, oppose the swap meet.

Mall officials charged that the project would affect existing retailers and cause unfair competition. Opponents also expressed concern about littering, vandalism, graffiti and parking problems associated with the swap meet operation.

But Leipzig now believes that “some of these issues can be fully addressed and completely resolved.”

He said he plans to meet with Tremblay to try to negotiate some concessions to alleviate the swap meet’s possible impact on its neighbors.

“I have talked to the operator’s representatives, and I think there is room for negotiations,” he said. He declined to elaborate on the concessions he would seek.

The council is expected to reconsider the proposed swap meet, which the planning commission had approved, at a mid-September meeting.

Leipzig said that it might be difficult to persuade his colleagues to change their votes. In fact, he conceded, he has yet to change his mind.

“There’s every possibility that when it comes back to a rehearing, we get exactly the same vote we had before.”