O.C. Swap Vendors at Loss Over Fair

Brushing aside complaints from swap meet vendors, the Orange County Fair Board confirmed Thursday that the fair will run for an extra week this summer, forcing 900 merchants who rent a fairground parking lot to suspend sales for an additional weekend.

Several vendors who attended Thursday’s board meeting complained that the fair would be taking away a fourth weekend during the “primo” summer months, when brisk sales help cover sluggish winter revenue.

The weekend swap meet has been run by Newport Beach-based Tel Phil Enterprises for 34 years. The meet is suspended during the fair’s run, but with a fourth weekend added, merchants say they will take a substantial loss.

Attorney Ed Susolik, who represents the vendors -- known as the Orange County Marketplace Merchants Assn. -- told board members that any profit they make by extending the fair an extra week “is being generated on the backs of mom-and-pop vendors.”

But board President Ruben Smith said the fair’s run needs to be lengthened to accommodate the growing number of fair-goers.

“We have a legal obligation to run the fair, not the marketplace,” Smith said.

The Orange County Fair is the third largest in the state. Last year’s attendance was the highest ever, 898,197, up 6% from 2001. This year, the fair will run July 11 through Aug. 3.

Smith made it clear that board members are not legally bound to compensate vendors, even though the merchants rent fairgrounds property for the swap meet. He acknowledged that the board alone decided to take over the vendors’ space for an extra weekend, but he insisted that merchants direct their complaints to Tel Phil, which leases the parking lot for the swap meet.

Merchants association spokesman Tom Askew countered that board members “are only passing the buck.”

“Tel Phil didn’t vote to extend the fair to four weeks,” he said. “They had nothing to do with what the board has done to us.”

Fair officials attempted to appease the merchants by offering rental space at the fair. Smith said about 81 vendors have accepted the offer.

But vendor Rick Horn called the board’s offer unrealistic and expensive. He said he rents a swap meet space of 20 feet by 45 feet for $55 a day. Fair officials have offered him a 10-by-10-foot space for $100 per day, he said. “I sell furniture. How can you sell furniture in a 10-by-10 space?”