What’s fair about stealing a family business?

Everyone knows the Orange County swap meet, but what most do not know

is that an Orange County family invented the market place idea 30

years ago. Before there was an Orange County Market Place, there was

nothing but a useless waste of space. A parking lot used for two or

three weeks a year for the county fair.

Bob Teller invented the idea. An idea that changed business and

made Orange County a hot-bed of entrepreneurs. Before the market

place, if you wanted to start a retail business, you needed a

storefront. Storefronts are expensive, and if you had one, there was

no guarantee that people would come find you. Thus the dilemma -- do

you give up your day job to pursue your dream or keep on working? The

answer to that question all changed with Teller’s idea. He created a

market place. You had a storefront twice a week and the rent was a

nominal fee. But with that rent, Teller would drive people -- 2

million a year -- past your front door.

Now, if you had an idea, you could still keep your job and have

your own business on the weekends. I know of two companies that have

millions of dollars in sales that started at a booth at the Orange

County Market Place. They all got their start with a booth at the

swap meet.

The idea is solid. And while there have been swap meets and flea

markets before, there was never a market place. Ask American Park ‘n

Swap. They are an expert at flea markets, but have never started, ran

or opened a market place. Here, reliably the same vendors show up

week after week. You can buy something at the market place and if you

want to return it, the return is guaranteed.

The fair board of directors this year -- 30 years after Teller

invented the idea -- stole his business. Now, the members of the

board are good honest civic-minded people, so I do not mean to claim

any impropriety on their part, but they have allowed it to happen.

The bid consideration and whoever recommended it are responsible.

You see, from the readings in the newspaper -- it sounds like the

board had every right to find a new operator of the market place, but

this is the deception. John Fernback, President of American Park ‘n

Swap, and his half page ad in the Daily Pilot does not set the matter

straight. It continues the deception. The fair board has land -- it

does not own the market place. It is truly Teller’s own invention. By

putting out to bid and limiting the bid to those interested in

running a market place, the fair board stole the Teller Family

business. There is no legal basis that allows any government to steal

your business. American Park’n Swap is simply trying to buy stolen

goods.

If the fair board said, “We have this land and we want someone to

come up with an idea to use it” -- then there is no problem. But to

actually put a bid out and call it a bid for a market place -- that

is theft.

As I understand the reports from the Daily Pilot, American Park ‘n

Swap has failed at every California swap meet they have ever

attempted. They are not local, they have nothing here but an

opportunity to steal the Teller’s family business. They failed to

follow the fundamental rules of the bidding process, so why would we

want them to run the market place?

The fair board now must make a decision. Having allowed the

authors of the bid to hijack the business, they have an opportunity

to correct this. The gall of John Fernbach to ask the question “Can

the market place be run better?” The real question is, whose market

place is it?

JAMES DAILY

Newport Beach