Mercado El Rey May Go 'Adios'

The City Council may reverse its decision to allow a new and now-popular mercado to operate.

Back in September 2011 and despite many objections, the San Juan Capistrano City Council green-lighted the permit for Mercado El Rey in the spot of the former Vincent de Paul Society thrift store.

Dan Friess, whose Friess Property Investment is the landlord for some 20 tenants in four nearby buildings, sued to get the council’s decision overturned. He prevailed in January. His primary concern is that the city did not force the latiino-goods market to provide sufficient parking.

“It appears to this court that in granting the permit to the Mercado, the city has failed to perform an act that the law required,” Judge Larry Brown wrote on Feb. 4, ordering the city to vacate its earlier decision.

The judge gave the city until April 8 to comply, but the mercado’s owner and owner have both tried to stop the revocation by forcing a trial.

Friees said they were unsuccessful in a recent hearing, so they are now taking the matter to a state appellate court.

For him and his tenants, the store, open since December 2011, has caused nothing but trouble, Friess said.

‘I’m frustrated. I feel like a hapless victim,” he said.

Mercado El Rey has 12 parking spots when there can be as many as nine employees working, he said. Delivery trucks block driveways and parking spaces of his tenants. He has a traffic enforcement deputy on speed dial.

Friess believes most of the problems can be resolved if the city forces the store to get rid of a carport-turned-inside-space that the thrift store first built. It covers six parking spaces.

“It’s become a full-blown retail space,” he said.

The council meets at 6 p.m. Tuesday at City Hall, 32400 Paseo Adelanto in San Juan Capistrano.

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