At its worst, the street market along East Hastings between Carrall and Columbia looks like The Night of the Living Dead.

Dishevelled street people in hoodies crowd around, checking out the junk that street vendors have laid out on the sidewalk. Tuesday afternoon, a couple of hundred people were shuffling about in a light drizzle, browsing through wares including a piano, cereal, an iPod, bike wheels, DVDs, nicotine gum, a mini disco ball and cowboy boots.

Up close it isn’t as scary as it looks from a distance, but you never know when danger will pop up. When a Sun photographer tried to shoot the street market from across the street, somebody hurled a glass bottle at his head.

But the market may not be on Hastings much longer. The City of Vancouver wants to move street vendors several blocks east to a less visible city-owned property near Oppenheimer Park. If all goes according to plan, the street market could be at 501 Powell in June or July.

There’s a catch, however. The Hastings street market isn’t officially sanctioned: the street people just took over the street during the past couple of years and started selling their goods.

The market that will be relocated to Powell St. is the officially sanctioned Downtown Eastside Street Market, which takes place every Sunday on Carrall Street between Hastings and Cordova. The new market will be open several days a week in the hope the sellers from Hastings will move there during the week.

“We know that roughly 70 per cent of the people who are vending along East Hastings Street also vend at the market on Sundays,” said Mary Clare Zak, managing director of social policy for the City of Vancouver.

“We know that it will be utilized by people who need a safe and legal place to do their vending, so that will hopefully address some of the crowd that’s there.”

But one of the Hastings vendors doesn’t think people will make the move.

“It won’t happen,” said Paul, who declined to give his last name.

“There’s no traffic there. People are here; no one’s going to go to Oppenheimer Park to buy a bunch of junk. Even though it’s really good junk, it’s still junk.”

The city paid $2.1 million for the Powell Street site, which spreads over seven lots and used to be the Nye iron foundry. It will knock down the old foundry building and replace it with a stylish double A-frame building called the Lions Marquee, which was originally designed for the TED conference in March.

Japantown resident Lance Burger is absolutely livid that the “junk market” is moving to his neighbourhood. He’s started an online petition, “Stop The Junk Market,” on change.org.

“From my perspective it’s an absolute nightmare,” said Burger, who owns a construction company. “We’re saturated in that district with social services. It’s killing us.

“The other issue is it’s stolen goods. We’ve had guys on our crew get their vehicles broken into. They go to the market and they find it at the market. It’s an absolute gong show.”