Commissary at El Toro Is Given Reprieve

Thousands of veterans and their families won a victory this week when military officials announced that the commissary at El Toro Marine Corps Air Station will stay open until September 2000--more than a year after the base closes.

“It’s a reprieve,” said George Simon, a former Marine and volunteer at the base’s retired activities office.

“We’re still fighting an uphill battle. Nobody has the slightest idea what’s going to happen after Oct. 1, 2000,” Simon said Friday. “But I can assure you that we’ll fight like hell to keep a commissary open in the area.”

Simon is among a group of retirees who organized to save the commissary, which serves the 120,000 military retirees in the area. It also serves hundreds of active-duty personnel who are at Miramar Marine Air Station but live in Orange County.

Pentagon officials had debated what to do with the commissary after the base closes in July and is turned over to Orange County.

After the veterans collected 5,000 signatures on a petition urging the military to keep the store open, the situation caught the attention of the Orange County Board of Supervisors. They voted unanimously in August to urge the Marine Corps to save the commissary.

The store provides a valuable service for enlisted personnel and military retirees on fixed incomes by selling food, clothing and household goods at a discount.

Under the Pentagon’s guidelines for closing military bases, the commissary eventually will be closed unless the Marine Corps demonstrates a need to keep it open and recommends to the assistant secretary of defense that it be maintained.