Santa Clarita / Antelope Valley : Old Deserted Shop May Go Up in Smoke : Santa Clarita: Once the only nearby general store, Dillenbeck’s Market has become an eyesore. Neighbors want it demolished. Fire officials are ready to help.

SANTA CLARITA — For decades, Dillenbeck’s Market was a family-run, all-purpose general store in a remote area where the few nearby residents could drop in for the latest gossip and buy everything from milk to farming equipment.

More recently, it has been an eyesore--an eyesore that may soon go up in smoke.

Modern shopping complexes dominate the site at one of the city’s busiest intersections, and the structure that used to be Dillenbeck’s has been abandoned for about a decade.

People who live in nearby condos and houses that have sprung up since the market closed have complained often about transients, gang members and others who use the deteriorating building as a shelter or party house. They, along with city officials, would like to see the store demolished.

“People just don’t want to see it anymore,” said Ruben Barrera, a city building official. “Some people are saying it is devaluing the surrounding property.”

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City codes allow authorities to request the property’s owners to demolish the building, he said. But the building’s owners, who live in Los Angeles, told city officials they did not have the $5,000 to $10,000 that demolition would cost.

So now, city officials want to burn it down, saving thousands of dollars in the process. The Los Angeles County Fire Department is ready to oblige. Fire officials want to burn the old store as a training exercise, which has been done on occasion with other buildings, authorities said.

The city had the option of demolishing the building and billing the owners. However, Barrera estimated allowing firefighters to burn it down will cost less than $2,000.

The store on the northwest corner of Soledad Canyon Road and Sierra Highway was opened shortly after World War II by Charlie Dillenbeck, one of the few residents in what is now Canyon Country, said Jerry Reynolds, curator of the Santa Clarita Valley Historical Society.

“In those days it was very isolated,” Reynolds said. “It was one of the only locations you could get to to do any shopping.”

The area’s population began growing in the 1960s, but “a sort of loyalty among the old-timers” kept the store going until it shut down when Dillenbeck became ill, Reynolds said.

The current owners have cooperated with city officials in boarding up the property when trouble has arisen, but complaints continue to surface every few months, Barrera said.

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Steve Kerekes, the agent for the owners, was unavailable for comment, but Barrera said they have agreed to allow the building to be burned.

The fire exercise was scheduled for this weekend, but has been delayed while investigators determine whether there is asbestos or any other hazard in the building that could harm firefighters, said Fire Department Battalion Chief Dave Moore.

In addition, the South Coast Air Quality Management District must decide whether weather conditions are suitable to allow the smoke to dissipate during the burning, Barrera said.

Reynolds said the building’s destruction will mean the loss of a local landmark, but in its current state he isn’t too disappointed.

“It was an interesting place but doesn’t qualify as a historic structure,” he said.