Crowd Protests Swap Meet Development
- Share via
SAN FERNANDO — Waving banners and playing drums, an estimated crowd of 250 marched about a mile from a swap meet on Glenoaks Boulevard to City Hall to protest a developer’s plans to build a major retail center that would close the swap meet.
The proposed development on 36 acres of privately owned land would replace the swap meet with a home improvement store and a discount department store, as well as small businesses.
“We don’t want the swap meet to close down,” said Victor Polanco, who helped organize the march and whose parents have been vendors at the swap meet for 20 years. “They have to think about the people they’re putting out of work. There’s 1,000 vendors that have been here for years.”
The developer, Regency Realty Corp., has an agreement with the majority owners of the property to build the retail project.
The potential tenant list includes discount retailers Kmart, Target, Wal-Mart and Costco and home improvement retailers Home Depot and Home Base.
Sign up for Essential California
The most important California stories and recommendations in your inbox every morning.
You may occasionally receive promotional content from the Los Angeles Times.
