A group of vendors fighting to remain in the Discount Mall in Little Village will have to leave in two days after a judge on Friday refused to block changes by the property owner.
About 40 vendors from the Lower West Side shopping center sued, asking a judge to decide whether the vendors are tenants or licensees, who could be summarily closed.
The judge on Friday denied the group’s motion for an injunction, meaning the group will have to leave as ordered by property owner John Novak of Novak Construction.
The judge’s ruling also does not protect them from the management company responsible for the group, PK Mall Inc. In a letter earlier in the month, the longtime management company told vendors that if they didn’t vacate, management might confiscate their merchandise.
“We’re feeling sad because the mall has always been more than just a business,” said Kocoy Malagón, the owner of a dress shop at the mall.
“But we’re also feeling OK because the city has promised to find us a new location where we can maintain our businesses.”
Malagón has worked at the mall for about a decade and since the fight with Novak began, she has become a spokesperson for the vendors under PK’s management. The company represents about half of the vendors at the mall; the other half, under different management, signed a new lease with Novak.
Malagón said city officials showed the vendors a former CVS store on West 26th Street where they hope to set up shop soon, and she hopes the city will be able to persuade Novak to give them enough time to move there.
A spokesman for the city’s Department of Planning and Urban Development confirmed that they were working with the vendors and the alderman to find a solution.
Ald. Byron Sigcho-Lopez, whose 25th Ward includes the Discount Mall and who has advocated for the vendors, has said keeping the businesses in operation could help prevent long-term negative outcomes for the Lower West Side community.
“What’s at stake here is the livelihood of our community,” he said at a rally outside the mall last week. “When we lose businesses like these, that’s what causes violence.”
The alderman could not be immediately reached for comment Friday.
The iconic mall opened at the intersection of 26th Street and Albany Avenue in 1991 and has become a staple of Chicago’s Latino community and draws visitors from outside the state. Novak acquired the property in 2019 and told the Sun-Times then that the mall might not be “the best use of the property” and that he intended to bring “more recognized national tenants” like Target or grocery stores that cater to Latinos.
Ramsin Canon, the group’s attorney, said several vendors he represented had been there since the mall opened.
“We feel the terms of the agreement and conduct on the part of the vendors was that of tenants, and they should have been treated as holding leases,” he said. “The court obviously disagreed and we have to accept the decision of the judge.”
Iraís Miranda, the owner of a musical instrument shop, said the judge’s decision floored him and his family, who work with him at the shop. “My kids are in shock,” he said. “They’re just getting started with the business and they grew up in here.”
He planned to tour a space in the Back of the Yards neighborhood on Friday night where they could set up shop. In the meantime, he planned to move his merchandise into storage and convince his kids that things will work out.
“If anything, they’re more worried than I am,” Miranda said, “but I’m telling them we have to be positive.”
Michael Loria is a staff reporter at the Chicago Sun-Times via Report for America, a not-for-profit journalism program that aims to bolster the paper’s coverage of communities on the South Side and West Side.
