Flea Market

Baltimore County police seized $1.5 million worth of counterfeit merchandise after a raid at a Dundalk flea market last month, the department announced Wednesday. Charges are pending against 19 people who rent space in the market, not the flea market owners, police said. The vendors have not been identified. Officers raided the North Point Plaza Flea Market on Old North Point Boulevard on Feb. 16, taking more than 4,000 pairs of shoes and 3,500 phone accessories along with pirated movies and music and clothing items.

A "lost" landscape thought to have been painted by Pierre-Auguste Renoir will go on the auction block Sept. 29 on behalf of the Baltimore-born woman who purchased the artwork at a West Virginia flea market for $7. "Paysage Bords de Seine," a 6-inch by 10-inch canvas dating from about 1879, is expected to fetch $75,000 to $100,000, according to Anne Norton Craner, the fine arts specialist for the Potomack Company, the Alexandria, Va., auction house...

It seemed like a deal that would benefit everyone.After the long-running Edmondson Drive-In flea market ended, a promoter approached Baltimore City to have a similar weekend event held at the now-vacant Memorial Stadium.He consulted neighborhood groups and won their support for the idea. For 16 weekends this spring and summer a market was held on a parking lot along 33rd Street. It drew thousands of shoppers, up to 300 vendors and reportedly netted $2,000 a week to the cash-starved city.Last week, the popular flea market was suddenly canceled.

The Arundel Village Security Patrol will hold a Community Flea Market from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Nov. 8 at the Polish Home Hall at Fairhaven Avenue and Filbert Street in Curtis Bay.The doors open to vendors at 8: 30 a.m. to set up.The patrol will accept donations to be used as prizes at the game wheel table. Donors may leave items at the headquarters at 602 Church St., call to have them picked up or drop them off at the flea market.The cost for vendors is $8 a table, two tables for $15 or three tables for $20.The proceeds will be used to help pay patrol expenses.

Frustrated by a Columbia developer's failure to improve an Elkridge flea market site, Howard County planning and zoning officials have taken steps to revoke his special exception to operate the business.Last week, the county Department of Planning and Zoning filed a request to revoke Barry Mehta's special exception because he did not make required site improvements -- including paving or applying an asphalt preservative to the parking lot and providing better access to roads -- before opening the Elkridge flea market April 2."

For five years, vagrants and vandals occupied the largest vacant space in the Ritchie Highway Shopping Center. But tomorrow a 30,000-square-foot flea market will open, marking another effort to revitalize the 40-year-old strip mall.Four local entrepreneurs hope to turn the former dilapidated space with graffiti-covered walls and broken windows into a bargain-hunter's dream. Vendors have rented nearly all the 230 tables and 25 booths for this weekend's grand opening."We want people to come in here and find good bargains," said Joel Freeman, 40, one of the investors in the Ritchie Highway Flea Market.

Two of the major kickoffs of the fall season are scheduled in the coming weeks in northwest Carroll.The 23rd annual Taneytown Flea Market will be at the Taneytown Fireman's Carnival Grounds starting at 8 a.m. Saturday. For the earliest birds, a pancake breakfast will be served beginning at 5 a.m. in the carnival grounds' activities building. The breakfast lasts until 11 a.m.; the flea market closes at 5 p.m.Eighty-two vendors have signed up to show their wares, and spaces still are available.

The Howard County Board of Appeals will decide next month whether the former site of the Elkridge Drive-In will remain a flea market.The Department of Planning and Zoning accused Columbia developer Barry Mehta -- who owns the 17-acre parcel off U.S. 1 and Bonnie View Lane -- of failing to make required site improvements, such as paving the parking lot and fencing the trash area.During a four-hour hearing on Tuesday, Mr. Mehta said he complied with the conditions of the special exception, but planning and zoning officials chose to interpret the conditions too strictly.

A 29-year-old Arbutus man was stabbed in the shoulder last weekend during an assault at an Elkridge flea market, Howard County police reported. Lance Roberts of the 1100 block of Courtney Road was taken to Maryland Shock Trauma Center after the stabbing about 10: 15 a.m. Saturday and treated for injuries to his back and upper shoulder, said Sgt. John Superson, a police spokesman. He was in serious but stable condition yesterday, a hospital spokeswoman said. According to a police account, Roberts and his wife were shopping at the U.S. 1 Flea Market in the 7500 block of Washington Blvd.

Plans to build a flea market on the site of the former Elkridge Drive-In have angered a group of Elkridge residents who say such operations attract "unsavory people," generate trash and tie up traffic.Meanwhile, owners and developers Barry and Charu Mehta have agreed to let the Elkridge Business and Professional Association use the 17-acre site off Route 1 for a nominal fee for the Elkridge Days Carnival in June.The flea market is the latest proposal for the site owned by the Columbia developers.