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Thursday, Mar 28, 2024

All Sales Final

More than 400 mom-and-pop businesses closed up shop on Sunday, Dec. 30, at the Valley Indoor Swap Meet on Variel Avenue in Canoga Park. The six-and-a-half acre site is destined to become a 438-unit apartment complex after the property owner Ronald Simms opted to not renew the lease and sold to a Texas developer. The publicity, promotions and pending demise of the facility drew an estimated 25,000 shoppers on the final weekend. Crowds came to say goodbye to long-time vendors and sift through bargains from among the merchandise of businesses that had until the following Monday to vacate. The onsite ATMs ran out of cash both days. Live music serenaded those wandering the aisles and free food fed those willing to stand in line to get it. Nearby, the Swap Meet’s owners discussed the end of an era. “We’ve had 3,200 vendors since we moved here in’86,” said Glenn Malkin, president of Metropolitan Marketing Inc. Malkin stood, along with fellow owners Ron Wolfe and Stuart Siegal the latter dubbed the mayor of the indoor marketplace and greeted well-wishers, longtime shoppers and onetime employees. Wolfe remarked that the unique combination of price, space, zoning and available parking was unlikely to overlap again. “I think the time has passed for things like this in the West San Fernando Valley,” Wolfe said, and it’s a “good year’s process” to get one open. Malkin said, “Customers love the term ‘swap meet;’ cities hate it,” alluding to the low demographic impression people have of the businesses. “We were the first to have an indoor swap meet in the city of L.A.,” Malkin said, noting that they’d first established this business across Victory Boulevard in 1983 where The Home Depot now stands. “We provide insurance, utilities, security, maintenance, promotion and help with the licensing for the city and state,” Malkin said. “Everything for business except stocking the goods,” he said. Wolfe noted that the process is particularly well-suited to new entrepreneurs. “We’re an incubator for businesses,” he said. Metropolitan also runs similar operations in Panorama City and Pomona. Malkin estimated perhaps as many as 30 of the vendors from the West Valley site would move to Panorama City. A couple dozen vendors had posted signs they’d be relocating to a similar facility at Vineland Avenue and Sherman Way in North Hollywood. Vendors slashed prices on their goods. Clothing prices were reduced to sell: $10 T-shirts for $3. At another booth, shirts were two for $5. Many vendors were too busy, either selling or packing, to chat with customers or the media representatives wandering the aisles. Patrons were buying armloads of used books from Duke Daneault, where he’s had his “Duke’s Books” shingle up for 15 years. The hand-corrected sign displayed the spiraling discounts: 50 percent off was crossed out in favor of 75 percent off, which was scratched out to say “$1 max. price.” “I found the secret of selling a lot of books is to give them away,” Daneault said, his shirt pocket overflowing with folding money, a literal handful of singles, fives, tens and twenties. His future was unclear, he said, until he found another business to buy or sell. His leftover books would have a home, however. They were being donated to the Friends of the Platt Library in Woodland Hills, where a book sale was planned for the next week and used books are sold onsite. Stephanie Levy is planning on taking her figurative ceramic business into a storefront location on Ventura Boulevard. From a business that grew out of her collection of figurative teapots, she’s been moving some of her inventory on eBay, but she’s seeking a more retail presence. “Figurative ceramics is something I love.” Her customers are “devastated,” Levy said. “Some have said ‘you’ve been here longer than I’ve been alive.'” Sheryl Piland’s hair extensions business, dubbed Thair’py, has been a going concern for about four years. She plans on working out of her home to service her customers, until she can find a place for her business to land. She waxed philosophical about the closure of the marketplace. “This was a family-oriented place, with a wider variety and different kind of merchandise than at a mall,” Piland said. “Change happens. One door closes and another door opens. Trouble is many people didn’t have time to find another door,” she said. Jehan Gasser lives in an apartment complex across the street. She said she was resistant to the swap meet when it moved in over 20 years ago. Now her granddaughter, Sarah Wells, helps Piland with her business. “I’m used to it and now I’m sad that it’s going,” she said. Dorothy Stone and her daughter Ilene Dustin said they’ve been shoppers for 15 to 20 years. “There’re so many places under one roof,” Stone said. “We’re getting on every mailing list we can,” Stone said. “We’re quite upset,” Dustin said. “It’s a great place to shop,” then, correcting herself said, “It was a great place.” Shopper Val Werlich said she drove in regularly from Westlake Village for almost 25 years. “They have everything under the sun, she said. “Elegant stuff, not just junky stuff. I’m sad to see it go.” Werlich said she can well afford to shop anywhere, yet “We’d bring European guests here. I’ve traveled the world and this is the best place for shopping…” Hours later she found a reporter to add more endorsements than she had mentioned previously: “My husband would come to a masseuse here, to get rid of headaches, for $12. My daughter bought a fine Italian leather coat, unlike anything you could get anywhere.” John Adair has been supplementing his mortgage broker business for six months by selling original motivational posters from a booth and says he’s done a “good business. I haven’t broken any records,” but he’s encouraged enough to expand his line which he intends to take online and into various brick-and-mortar locations. “I have 35 more that are ready to go.” The end-of-the-year crowds had been good for the Peruvian Arts & Crafts booth of Rosa Buczko, where the increased attention brought out many customers. Her husband Emory said, “December was great.” The leftover stock of handmade, imported jewelry and crafts was destined to “go in their garage.”

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