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Sunday, Jul. 06, 2008
For a taste of Hispanic culture or a bargain, you'll find it at the Pasco Flea Market (w/ slideshow, photo gallery)
By Joe Chapman, Herald staff writer
Herald
Edith Ramos, 7, right, of Walla Walla, whose parents are Luis and Maria, looks on as Victor Gomez, left, fetches a parakeet for the family, whose bird just died.
If you've never been to the Pasco Flea Market, don't worry about looking up the street address to get there.
About all you need do is head toward east Pasco on a Sunday and follow the cars.
Officially at 200 E. Lewis Place, the flea market is a weekend mecca for bargain hunters and Latino culture hounds. Open each year from March to December, the outdoor market literally is a place where you can find everything under the sun.
"It's a place for Hispanic people to come," said Alexandro Lima, 27, of Othello, who was shopping for some dresses for his daughters on a recent Sunday.
He said the flea market reminds him of Mexico - he can get foods he used to find across the border, such as cactus leaves for cooking and fruit-flavored waters, and he just feels "more free" walking around there.
The market also is a place for Anglos and other ethnicities, albeit in smaller numbers.
"It's just something to do," said Scott Ehlers of Fargo, N.D., who hit the flea market while in town visiting a friend. "I've been here once before and there's a lot of stuff to look at."
He's right about that. A visitor to the flea market could look at - and, of course, buy - gloves, boots, Levi jeans, women's underwear, jewelry, exotic birds, power drills, wrenches, car batteries, musical instruments, spurs and fancy belt buckles, just to name a few.
Bill Robinson, who opened the market in 1987 to help pay for college, says the wide range of products for sale is the key to the market's success.
"The variety - that's probably the right word," said the Cougar alum as he stood near the front entrance, watching as patrons filed through paying 50 cents each to get in.
"We just parked a truckload of goats," Robinson said, "and you can buy iPods over there. So everything between iPods and goats."
Add low prices and the cultural tradition of market day in Latin American countries, and it's not hard to see why the dusty parking lot around the flea market becomes saturated with cars on Sundays.
Gates open at 7 a.m., and after church lets out 800 parking spaces will be taken and the flea market's staff will have to turn away the overflow.
In all, Robinson estimates 1,200 cars come through each Sunday. That would be 3,600 people with three per vehicle.
The flea market has space for about 400 vendors, who each pay $15 per table per day.
In 2007, about 100,000 people paid admission at the flea market, according to tax records at Pasco City Hall. An unknown number of children younger than 10 also visited.
This year for the first time, the flea market also has operated on Saturdays, opening at 9 a.m. But business pales on those days compared with Sundays.
One family adding to the numbers is that of Analina Orrio of Toppenish. She visited the Pasco Flea Market with her husband and three children on a recent Sunday just to look around and possibly buy some shoes or blankets.
She stopped at one shoe-filled table and tried out a pair on her son, Angel, 6, who already was outgrowing those she bought him two months ago.
Vendor Ghassan Abed had priced the size-10 Perry Ellis shoes she was considering at $28, but he would give them to her for $25, he said.
Orrio said she would think about it and moved on to the next table.
Abed has been a vendor at the flea market for 17 years, but he complains that the economic downturn is making business harder. His three-hour commute from Wenatchee used to cost him $70 in gas, but now costs him $125, he said.
On top of that, he now pays $60 each day to rent space for his four booths, up from $40 last year, when the vendor fee was only $10 per table. Still, he hesitates to raise prices.
"Because the customers, they no like to pay more," Abed lamented.
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