At the Monday, July 1 meeting of the Mebane City Council, the elected board approved an annexation and rezoning for a new freight terminal for R+L Carriers on an 83.36 acre tract along Buckhorn Road. The annexation and rezoning has resulted in the closing of the Buckhorn Flea Market, which had its final day of sales on June 30.
Local residents with ties to the flea market expressed disapproval and dismay at the Council’s decision. More than 200 residents made their way to the City Council meeting, resulting in a nearly three-hour public comment period, almost all expressing disappointment at the closing of the flea market.
Wendy Padilla, a Hillsborough resident and newly-elected member of the Orange County Schools Board of Education, appeared on behalf of the many area residents affected by the closure of the Buckhorn Flea Market. Like Padilla, many of the affected local residents are Latino.
“I’m here as an advocate. I’m also a member of the NAACP and recently elected to the Orange County School Board. I am here as a volunteer,” Padilla said to the Council.
Padilla, like many others, pleaded for extra time for the vendors and inhabitants of the flea market to remove their inventories.
Padilla also suggested that residents had not been given enough time to vacate the site, which is one reason why the City Council worked with developers to extend the date for removing materials from the flea market by 30 days, from July 15 to August 14.
“I was shown the letter that stated that they (the flea market vendors) had until June 30 for selling and they needed to be out by July 15,” Padilla explained. “On June 16, I walked and spoke to vendors. I was there the entire day, until 6:00 p.m.. As I spoke to the vendors, not everyone had received the letter that went out about the closure. Please consider the following - one, extending their stay at the Buckhorn Flea Market, so they’re able to sell the merchandise that they’ve procured already for the summer and fall. The second is the Council members and Mayor to please help them find a new location.”
“I have been going to the Buckhorn Flea Market for several years and I have been established there for the past nine years,” added Haw River resident Bennie Gonzalez. “More than anything, we were given very short notice to figure out a new place to be able to sell and it’s really difficult to find a new place to be. This is practically part of my job, which I do every Sunday. We’re not trying to insist on staying there. What we want is some more time and some help figuring out where we can go to have another flea market.”
“I have been selling at the flea market (for years),” added Randleman resident Alba Luz Miranda. “I used to be a single mom, and I actually raised my daughter off of what I made at the flea market and cleaning houses. We are here to ask for more time. This was too short notice and we need more time. There are many families like mine who depend on the free market to make a living. After I raised my daughter, I was able to remarry. But then my husband got sick and I need to be able to sell at the flea market in order to make payments on my house. And like me, there are many other people who depend on the flea market for this, and so please help us.”
While some vendors and tenants asked for extra time to remove their belongings, others lamented the loss of the flea market itself. An overflow crowd of speakers - many of which didn’t speak English - came to decry the loss of the flea market. The City of Mebane brought in Spanish-speaking interpreters to assist with the public comments portion of the meeting.
“I’ve been at the flea market for 25 years, selling my businesses there,” said Burlington resident Michael Vega. “And this is, I think, an injustice. This is an enormous project. And it seems to me that for such an enormous project, they kind of forgot about the people down at the flea market. Thousands of us depend on the flea market for our livelihood. And even for me, I’ve been there for such a long time. And I was notified with two weeks (notice) that I had to remove things via text message. I think that’s an injustice. I have, because of my business, lots of containers that I need to remove from there, which is hard to do.”
“I’ve been selling at the Buckhorn Flea Market for almost 10 years, and the flea market has also obviously been an opportunity for income, but it’s also been an opportunity to show our kids how satisfying it is to earn your living from your own hard work,” added Luvia Martinez of Haw River. “During this time, we’ve formed ties of friendship with the vendors around us. We’ve watched each other’s kids grow up, and we’ve watched them take on their own entrepreneurship and moving forward.”
“We understand that the property doesn’t belong to us. But we also think that the way that we were notified - The owners thought it was appropriate to tell us to leave the premises in two weeks. I am in support of what my companions are asking for, which is that we have enough time to get rid of the merchandise that we have on hand.
“I’ve been visiting the flea market for more than 12 years and I’ve been selling at it for more than six (years),” added Mebane resident Henry Toledo. “Every project has a plan and the plan looks nice. I follow the pictures and they look great. But in that plan, they didn’t think about what to do with all these families who depend on the flea market.”
“With all due respect, I know that many of you who are working on this project to develop it have families,” Toledo continued. “We have families who depend on us. I’m so proud because my daughter graduated high school this year. And I’m happy because I thought that I was going to be able to send her to college, and the flea market helps me to do things like that. We earn our money with the sweat of our brow and we’re proud of that.”
“I appreciate what you’re offering (30 days’ extra time to vacate) but it really isn’t actually enough,” said Veronica Torres of Burlington. “We need more time to sell the merchandise. We need a solution. That’s why we come to you as elected officials for help. I’m proud of the money that I’ve made selling at the flea market. My son is going to graduate college next year with money that I made at the flea market. So we do really appreciate what you’re offering but what we need is more time.”
Although the City of Mebane did agree with the developer of the new R+L Carriers terminal to extend the date to August 14 for the flea market vendors to leave the site, there was no settlement as far as assisting the flea market vendors in finding a new location. As it stands, it doesn’t appear that the Buckhorn Flea Market in its previous form will be in existence in the Mebane area unless a new site presents itself in the coming months.
