NORTH LAS VEGAS (FOX5) — After weeks of uncertainty and a sudden closure that left hundreds of vendors without their main source of income, Broadacres Marketplace is officially set to reopen Friday, Aug. 1.
FOX5 was exclusively invited inside the swap meet as crews prepared to welcome back families, food vendors, and small business owners – many of whom haven’t worked since the shutdown on June 21.
In an exclusive one-on-one interview, Broadacres General Manager, Yovana Alonso broke her silence about the closure and directly addressed the rumors that have swirled for weeks and the vendors who said they felt abandoned.
“First of all, I want to apologize to those all those vendors because that was never an intention,” Alonso said. “That was part of the reason why we did the closure, to listen to our vendors, to understand their fears, to understand their needs.”
Broadacres Marketplace closed their doors just days after federal agents raided their sister swap meet – Santa Fe Springs in California. But Alonso explained fear was already bubbling before the California raids, and vendors worried they would be next – so Broadacres hit pause.
“I believe the fear was already there, we had been hearing things from our vendors prior to this,” she said. “With everything that’s happening nationwide, not just in California, I think that’s what caused the fear and that probably sparked a lot more fear amongst our vendors.”
Alonso confirmed Broadacres never had any formal or informal communication with federal agents.
“No,” she said. “Unfortunately, there’s a lot of misinformation in our community, and that sometimes misleads people. I feel like we just needed to take a pause to really understand where these rumors were, where the fear was coming from, but no.”
In the days during the closure, behind the scenes, Broadacres partnered with legal experts and civil rights groups – developing new safety protocols and training vendors on what to do if law enforcement ever shows up.
“We created an alert system for our vendors in case that any law enforcement were to show up around the vicinity or on property, we can alert our vendors,” Alonso said.
She added they will also be holding know your rights trainings to help vendors and customers handle encounters with law enforcement calmly and confidently.
To try to help alleviate some financial stress for vendors, Broadacres will also waive storage fees for the closure period and offer discounted rent through September.
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