OCC Swap Meet now must abide by the city’s rules

To swap meet or not to swap meet.

That was the question Costa Mesa planning commissioners and Orange

Coast College officials needed to hammer out.

For now, it looks like the college’s weekend swap meet is going to

get another chance at life.

Some may recall that last spring, city officials, responding to

complaints from residents over traffic and crowds, took a closer look

at the college’s 20-year-running flea market operation to see if it

was adhering to the rules.

The result was surprising. It turned out the swap meet had

originally only been approved as a Sunday-only operation but had

expanded to Saturdays as the years went by. In addition, the popular

and successful operation spawned thriving small businesses and

contributed millions of dollars to the college budget coffers.

But who was to blame for expanding the operations?

College officials, to be sure, needed to take the heat for that.

And, in fact, they did, halting the Saturday operations immediately

-- to the detriment of their budget and the merchants who sell their

wares.

City officials, however, weren’t innocent in this snafu. Not only

did they not do a good job of policing the swap meet and making sure

it adhered to the original Sunday-only permit, it was discovered

later that city inspectors had gone out at least two times to inspect

the swap meet operations on Tuesdays.

We probably don’t need to remind anyone, the swap meet isn’t there

on Tuesdays.

Monday’s unanimous vote by planning commissioners to resurrect the

swap meet came after much negotiations and agreements by the college

to prohibit parking in the Coast Community College District parking

lot, require advanced reservations by vendors and undergo a six-month

review.

While the matter could be appealed to the council, we presume and

expect that most of the major kinks have been smoothed out and the

swap meet will get another chance, to the benefit of the college and

the merchants.

In the end, though, we hope these additional measures will also

help the residents, who have to live near the weekend event. If the

six-month review reveals problems for those residents, the city will

need to make some tough decisions and the college will have to live

with it.