Nonprofit Creating Justice Announces Plans to Buy Longstanding Family-Run Market in Skid Row

Nonprofit Creating Justice has announced plans to buy a long-running local market on Skid Row — and they're raising funds to make it a reality.

Skid Row People's Market, originally known as Best Market, is a family-run business at the corner of 5th Street and San Pedro Street that has operated in the area for 29 years. Under the current owner Danny Park, the store has expanded to become a full-service market, offering produce and fresh goods.

The store has developed strong commitments to social justice under Park's ownership — on its walls are photos of Latasha Harlins, George Floyd, and Skid Row residents who've died on the streets. The store often allows locals to purchase food and other goods on credit.

"The Skid Row community loves Danny, and Danny's Korean, right?" Creating Justice co-founder Cue Jn-Marie said. "The narrative is usually that Korean people come into the community and they basically extract resources from our community. They don't put anything back into it. Well, now you have a different story."

Park, who is on the board of Creating Justice, told Jn-Marie about his plans to retire from operating the shop and sell the market. Jn-Marie said he initially set out to identify a buyer who'd continue the shop's legacy and vision, before the two worked out a deal that would transfer ownership over to Creating Justice.

"Danny didn't look for the highest bidder to sell the market to," Jn-Marie said. "He wanted to sell it to a community member."

Once Creating Justice has raised the funds to purchase the market, Jn-Marie said the organization plans to build on the work of Park and his family, as well as its other enterprises like the worker-owned Hip Hop Smoothie Shop in Skid Row.

"Our goal is to create an alternative, to create alternatives to capitalism, more village type thinking, more communal type thinking," Jn-Marie said.

How to help

Creating Justice is accepting donations to help them finalize the purchase of the market. "We speak by faith and we know it's going to happen, that the energy is too great for it not to happen," Jn-Marie said. For more information and to donate, go to creatingjustice.la.