Sunday, 8 October 1995
MONEY     

Bob Christmas
THE ARIZONA DAILY STAR

The Chapins have a family reunion every week at the Tanque Verde Swap Meet. Richard Chapin, who started the business 20 years ago as a senior at the University of Arizona, is company chairman. His wife, Monica, is secretary-treasurer.

Richard's sister, Linda Fiore, is president; her husband, Fred, keeps the books.

And, Richard and Linda's mother, Emily, is vice president. Besides signing checks, helping with decisions and checking time sheets, she still washes all the towels used at the swap meet's snack bars. She's 85.

Richard and Linda's late father, Maurice, was retired from General Motors Corp., but worked at the swap meet from its inception until the day he died ``with a pencil in his hand'' in 1989.

Linda laughs when she talks about her son, Kenneth, who was picking up papers at the meet when he was 4. ``We used to pay him with an ice cream cone,'' she said. ``Now he's the manager, and he's not so cheap.''

At 42, Richard Chapin appears a bit amazed that so much has happened in the 20 years since he abandoned a college degree for the instant gratification of running a swap meet.

During a recent free-for-all interview that involved most of the family members, Chapin explained that he had been selling at other local swap meets ``and I felt I could do better.''

The Tanque Verde Swap Meet didn't start at the famous corner of East Tanque Verde and East Grant Road. Chapin first leased seven acres where Golf N' Stuff now operates at 6503 E. Tanque Verde. That was March 1975, and 10 sellers showed up to hawk wares from the backs of their trucks.

Monica chimed in: ``Richard had 10 sellers, but in Tucson's 110-degree heat during the day, they soon left. Richard then decided that nighttime was a better sales time, and that decision saved the business.''

Richard explained: ``Nighttime sales were better in the summer. When June came, I was hit hard. We went around and gathered Christmas lights where we could, we strung them - and prayed.''

Linda Fiore said gross receipts that first year totaled about $100,000, but expenses for such things as maintenance and electricity - the swap meet provides electricity for sellers in addition to lighting - were high, even with free family grunt work. ``That first year we barely met the bills,'' Richard Chapin acknowledged.

The move to 17 acres at Tanque Verde and Grant came in January 1977 - ``and we had a couple hundred sellers by that time'' to fill about 450 available spaces, Chapin recalled.

``Some of our sellers have expanded into the malls, or they have stayed with us and sell elsewhere, too,'' he said.

Monica again: ``We've had some of those same sellers for 18 years.''

Buyers have been coming to the swap meet for a long time, too, said Linda. ``In fact, some of our 80 employees began coming to the meet with their parents. And other kids who used to come with their parents are now bringing their own kids.''

About 10 employees have found marital bliss among their peers at the meet. There's even been a marriage on the swap meet's stage - one vendor to another.

Over the years, the Grant and Tanque Verde spot became an eastside meeting place, with parking lots overflowing on weekends. The good times rolled until mid-1986, when the business's lease wasn't renewed.

``We were asked to leave because a deal was made for a big development on the corner,'' Richard explained. The whole ordeal took about six months to accomplish - first finding a new spot and then making physical improvements to the new site: 30 leased acres at 4100 S. Palo Verde Road.

After agonizing over the move - ``we would have been foolish not to have been concerned,'' Linda said - the family was relieved when 90 percent of the vendors showed up on Palo Verde, and so did the customers.

Surprisingly, the swap meet was asked to return to Grant and Tanque Verde when the development deal there fell through. But ``we were already established at the new site,'' Richard said. ``We have 19 acres for 1,400 parking spaces served by 12 entrances/exits, and 11 acres for sales. Instead of the 450 selling spaces at the eastside site, the Palo Verde property has 750 spaces.''

An Albertson's market, Target store and McDonald's and Boston Market restaurants now occupy the Grant and Tanque Verde site.

Last year, Tanque Verde Enterprises Inc. bought the Palo Verde site, which now offers several food outlets, a koi pond, a stage, a movie theater for kids and improved restrooms. The family also plans more landscaping at the site ``for a more parklike appearance,'' but no new construction or big celebrations are planned to mark the operation's 20th anniversary, Richard said.

Around the country, there are about 2,500 swap meets - known as flea markets east of the Mississippi River - ``and we're rated in the top 50,'' Richard said. ``We have a great variety of people from all walks of life at the swap meet.''

Said Linda: ``A lot of Phoenix people come here because it's cooler. And we also have vendors from Mexico. A few weeks ago, we had a vendor from Australia. I like the diversity of vendor items, and it's not necessarily the same vendor mix from day to day.''

The swap meet is an easy way to get into business, Richard said. ``It's $12 a session for vendors, and sessions run from 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. and from 3 to 11 p.m. on Saturdays and Sundays. Thursdays and Fridays, there's one session from 3 to 11 p.m.''

Monica said safety is an important part of the swap meet's operation. To make people feel comfortable in the parking lot, observers watch from two towers above the vehicles. Furthermore, during peak operation hours there are eight to 10 employees and three off-duty Pima County sheriff's deputies roaming the site.

The swap meet doesn't try to control what vendors sell, Richard said. ``Once things are displayed in public, they are subject to public scrutiny,'' he said. ``We can't monitor the vendors, but with the deputies there, they are on the alert'' for counterfeit goods or other products available illegally.'''

On a different note, Richard said that up to 50 vendor spaces are reserved on weekends for the free use of charity fund-raisers.

He revels in owning a swap meet. ``It's the last remaining hope of free enterprise in its true form,'' he said.

And it's also a good investment. Monica said the $1 million cost to move the swap meet and to make improvements at the new site will be paid off in two more years. And in another seven years, the property's mortgage will be paid.

Monica said with conviction: ``We'll never sell.''

To which Linda added: ``Unless we get an offer we can't refuse.''