Market Value

LANCASTER — On a stretch of High Desert road barely within reach of water and electric service, a convenience store that serves as the last outpost of civilization for its rural neighbors might soon be whisked away like a passing tumbleweed.

A Los Angeles County planning official is expected to decide today whether the S-R Market should be allowed to continue operating on land zoned for housing, as it has since 1953.

Last month, John Lee and his wife, Linda, bought the market, which serves as cooler and larder for dozens of neighbors without utilities. Although the county is recommending the store remain open, the couple fear complaints about loitering beer drinkers might persuade a hearing officer to close down the local landmark.

“People use this store and there is a necessity to keep it open,” said John Lee, a 49-year-old retired electrical repairman. “People don’t have refrigerators or freezers.”

The store is located in the northernmost realm of Los Angeles County, in an unincorporated area east of Lancaster. The Lees lease the building and need a county conditional use permit to continue running the store.

“We’re not entirely opposed to uses such as this if they serve the population,” said Russell Fricano, a county planning assistant who is recommending the store be allowed to continue operation through 2007.

Even so, he said, there is no guarantee the county hearing officer in charge of the case will approve the permit.

More than 300 people, mostly neighbors, have signed a petition to keep the store open. For the past 44 years, the S-R Market--the region is known as Sunny Ranchos--has served the scattering of nearby trailers and houses.

Every day about 50 customers shop there, some traveling several miles from the collection of low-slung dwellings built by families who purchased land from millionaire developer Marshall Redman in an alleged desert land fraud that is still unfolding in court.

Many of the homes are without heat or electricity. In the summer months, when local temperatures can top 110 degrees, residents travel by car and by foot for ice to keep their food cold.

Residents of this community live more than 15 miles east of Lancaster’s supermarkets and miles from the next nearest store.

Aurelio Hernandez, during a recent visit, bought a pound of sugar at the Lees’ market.

“It’s a convenient store,” said Hernandez, who moved here 10 years ago. “Right now if this wasn’t here I would have to go all the way to Lancaster.”

Other customers agree, saying they look forward to a number of planned improvements at the market, such as the installation of a propane tank so they can buy cooking fuel.

“Everybody out here doesn’t make very much money,” said Erin Vaden, 18, who lives on a farm about two miles from the S-R Market. “It’s good to have a store up here. There’s a lot of people that would go without if the store wasn’t here.”

Vaden said local mothers have a hard time getting to Lancaster stores to buy milk for their children.

But others have complained to county authorities that some men loiter at the store, drinking alcohol and harassing customers. The county is recommending that alcohol sales be restricted to beer products containing less than 5% alcohol and wines of no more than 15% alcohol.

“I’m not worried about loitering,” said John Lee. “That all took place before I took over.”

In addition to propane sales, Lee is also talking about adding new shelves to the store, as well as a coin laundry. He even wants to put up a lighted sign to catch more traffic.

Lee said the store right now is about breaking even. But he didn’t buy the store to get rich.

“I like living out in the country,” he said. “You can get on your horse or on your motorcycle and just go.”

Lee stops to point out the pay phone at the front of the S-R. “That’s just about the only phone people have up here,” he said.

Fricano has recommended the phone no longer accept incoming calls to discourage loitering.

“I don’t understand why they want to be so hard on people,” Lee said. “A place like this, it’s not hurting anybody.”