MEL TOADVINE Save the flea market was the message of several of vendors who showed up last week at the Community Council meeting to ask for support after the flea market was cited for code violations. Some 30 or more vendors like these were at the meeting with placards.

A group of vendors from the Lehigh Acres Flea Market with signs asking that their businesses not be shut down appeared before the monthly meeting last week of the Lehigh Community Council and asked for a letter of support.

The flea market has been cited for code violations and for a couple of fire department violations during a recent inspection. The main problem from code enforcement is that the outside tents don’t meet county requirements.

Mike Lippke, manager of the Lehigh Acres Flea Market, and many of his group of vendors and their families, mostly all carried signs asking for support.

The Community Council, which has seats for 41 local residents of Lehigh meet monthly at the Sheriff’s Annex on Plaza Drive Monday nights at 6 p.m. to address issues with regards to Lehigh. Around 36 or more were present at the meeting.

Jim Kreger, Community Council president, asked Lippke to speak before the group at the beginning of the meeting since so many vendors had piled into the room with their signs.

Lippke, the flea market manager, thanked the group for taking time to hear him.

“I’m here tonight to ask for your support. We have been told that the Community Council has clout with Lee County and we thought we would come here and ask you for a letter supporting us as small business people in Lehigh,” Lippke said.

He said the flea market has been in Lehigh for 50 years and today, it has grown to a larger flea market, with inside and outside vendors, and is an asset of historical value to Lehigh. It is the only flea market in the community.

“We have people here representing 60 vendors who each run their own businesses. They pay rent to the flea market and they maintain their businesses. Because of some of the requirements by code enforcement, it has become a hardship for them to make changes,” Lippke said.

He went on to explain that the flea market is on the grounds of the area where the Spring Festival once was held. It is off of Homestead Rd. and also there is an entrance off Beth Stacey Blvd.

“It has a lot of history that is valuable to Lehigh,” Lippke said.

Community Council member Edd Weiner told Lippke that “Lehigh is cleaning up the area.”

“For two years we have been meeting on Saturdays to do exactly that I see nobody here at this meeting from your group. Lehigh Acres will look different in five years. To have banners and things at the flea market, those things are of the past,” Weiner said.

Lippke told the Council that a large percentage of the vendors at the flea market were off Latino background and again were small businesses “trying to make a living.”

Weiner shot back that Lippke shouldn’t inflame the crowd and Lippke shot back that they were at the meeting only to get their support. At times, the back and forth between Council members and Lippke were heated, but in the end there was an apology from both sides. Mohamad Yasin, another member of the Council, said he thought “we all can work together on this.”

He said if the vendors aren’t involved with the plan that Lehigh is working on, they should be and Lippke said he also wanted the Council to become involved with them, too.

“We just want a letter of support for our 60 small businesses. Without their businesses if they have to shut down, many will be without work and have to ask for public assistance. As it is now, they are making a living and feeding their families,” Lippke said.

When Council member Weiner said he has ridden by the site many times and that there are violations with outside vendors which shouldn’t be there, Lippke replied that the flea market was not breaking the law because it had been grandfathered in and that vendors could use the grounds of the flea market as well as the metal building.

“Do the repairs and come back to us,” said Orville Hall, another member of the Community Council.

Tami Baker, another member of the Community Council, asked if there were violations about safety issues. Lippke said the market was safe and that corrections had been made for the fire department.

“There are no safety issues,” Lippke said.

The exchange between Council members and Lippke and his vendors took up about a half hour of the meeting.

“We just want to exist and it would better if you would give us support,” Lippke said again.

He apologized and said he was sorry if he had gotten a little passionate. Members of the board gave him an applause.

No letter of support for the flea market was given however. Lippke and his vendors left.

Rick Anglickis, another member of the Council, said he had problems giving support to what he saw as an “embarrassment,” referring to the flea market.

After the vendors left, Miles smith, who identified himself as a Lehigh resident, told Council members that “those guys came here to ask for your help. To point them in another direction was wrong.”

He chastised the board and reminded Weiner that in the beginning he said that he may be stupid in listening to what Lippke had to say.

“Maybe if you’re stupid, you should not be on the board,” he said to Weiner.

Later when Lee County Commissioner Frank Mann arrived at the meeting, he told members that he has talked to code enforcement and has encouraged them to work with the vendors to make the needed improvements.

“And the vendors will do that,” he said.

Muhammad Yassin, another member of the Community Council said he believed the owner should fix what is wrong and not leave all the expense to the vendors.

Commissioner Mann said no action is being taken at this time against the vendors. They are being given time to get up to code,” he said.

At one point, Lippke was asked who owned the flea market and Lippke said it was owned by Mike Morgan Associates. However, after the meeting, Jim Kreger, the Council’s president, said the company that owned the flea market was owned by Lehigh businessman Eugen Borosch.