ENCINITAS — Lupe Lopez has sold flowers from the same stand along Saxony Road for 36 years. She wants to stay but says the property owner has given her until December to leave.
Lopez Flowers sits at 440 Saxony Road, across the street from the former Paul Ecke Ranch. Lopez said she hasn’t been offered a new lease for her current space.
Rosemary Ragone bought the nearly 3-acre site in September 2025, according to the San Diego County Assessor’s Office.
Prior to the sale, the property, which includes a house, a studio, a greenhouse and the flower stand, had passed from one generation to the next within the same family since the 1950s.
Ragone said the purchase was contingent on all tenants moving out before she bought the property as is. After taking ownership of the site, Ragone said she learned that the flower shop and the studio were built without permits.
In a June 16 letter to Lopez obtained by The Coast News, Ragone wrote that the city had inspected the property and also determined that “certain structures…do not comply with current building and safety codes.”
Ragone said she plans to demolish the flower stand and studio and has been waiting about six months for the city to issue demolition permits.
“I have to demolish that whole flower stand and studio. Both were constructed illegally without permits,” Ragone said. “In the flower stand, there are wires hanging everywhere. It’s very obvious that it’s not up to code.”
In a separate, undated letter, Ragone told Lopez she would provide a formal 60-day notice once the city issued the permits and invited the shop owner to discuss a new lease at market rent after the city approved the work.
Lopez wrote back asking for copies of any city notices or citations and questioning why the city had renewed her business registration year after year for decades.
Encinitas requires storefronts to obtain a business registration certificate and renew it annually, a process separate from building permitting. Lopez Flowers has a current registration even though the stand was built without permits.
The city declined to comment, citing an ongoing code enforcement investigation.
Ragone said she hopes Lopez finds another location and knows firsthand the cost of relocating a business after being forced to move her own longtime Leucadia restaurant, When in Rome.
“Nobody is telling her that she has to go out of business; she just has to relocate,” Ragone said. “We truly wish her well.”
Lopez pays $1,400 a month and said she can’t afford higher rent. Since buying the property, Ragone said she had kept the flower shop’s rent below what she considered the market rate.
Lopez Flowers stands along a stretch of Saxony Road with deep roots in the city’s flower-growing history. In 1923, the Ecke family moved its poinsettia business from Los Angeles to a 40-acre tract along the road that became the site of the Paul Ecke Ranch. The family helped make the poinsettia a Christmas staple.
The local history is personal for Lopez, who told The Coast News that she sold flowers to a member of the Ecke family every week for years before the family sold the business in 2012.
Customer Brenda Reeder, 67, of Del Mar, first called Lopez on another florist’s recommendation. Reeder’s daughter wanted pink peonies for her wedding, but they were out of season. Lopez found them.
“She must have the magic because she found peonies for me,” Reeder said.
When Reeder picked up the wedding flowers on Oct. 24, she said cars and trucks lined Saxony Road as customers waited for Lopez to hand them their flowers. Reeder hopes a local business might have space for Lopez or hire her to arrange flowers.
“I just hope someone in the community will be able to help her find a little spot for her shop,” Reeder said.
