Neighbors oppose El Mercado expansion

But while merchants love the crowds, they are a source of conflict between neighbors and Pedro Rosado, the 73-year-old owner of El Mercado. Rosado hopes to expand the massive complex by acquiring a full liquor license -- currently he can sell beer and wine -- and adding a dance floor and sports bar to the third floor. But some residents complain that the clientele is already too rowdy at night and on the weekends, saying the customers urinate on sidewalks and drive drunk around the neighborhood.

Longtime resident and community organizer Nadine Diaz, 46, said that about a month ago she saw a man stumble out of El Mercado about 9 p.m., unzip his pants and relieve himself in the middle of the sidewalk while facing homes opposite the marketplace. Others have chucked eggs and trash into her yard, she said.

"This is not tolerable," she said.

Rosado shrugs off those stories, arguing that El Mercado cannot be blamed for the neighborhood's problems. Boyle Heights has 250 liquor licenses within 15 square miles, according to the Los Angeles Police Department, and El Mercado is surrounded by three bars. Rosado insists that to stay competitive he must offer liquor.

"All my competition has everything they need and I am falling behind," he said. "When someone goes out with their wife or girlfriend, the lady doesn't want a beer -- she wants a margarita."

Some of Rosado's opponents cringe at the idea of taking a family or a date to El Mercado. "You walk in there and it smells like urine," Teresa Marquez said. "I can't even take the elevator because I would probably throw up,"

Marquez, 61, is a lifelong resident of Boyle Heights. She remembers El Mercado as a tourist destination when it first opened in 1968, offering Japanese, Italian and Mexican food to visitors.

But El Mercado is not Olvera Street -- there are no tour buses filled with international spectators snapping pictures of mariachis. Instead, Spanish-speaking vendors haggle with customers over handmade leather boots. Discounted car accessories collide with miniature statues of the Virgin of Guadalupe in display windows. Piñatas dangle from crisscrossed wires.