Small-business owners at the Aloha Stadium Swap Meet are feeling pinched by an increase in rent that took effect last month.

On June 1, the Aloha Stadium Authority upped the rent to $63 per day from $50 for the busiest spots. Next June, rent will go up again to $70, and to $75 the following year.

Sno Roberts, who sells Pacific Island crafts and sits on the board of directors of the swap meet's vendors association, said the increase comes right off the bottom line for many vendors.

"We can't pass along those price increases to customers," Roberts said. "There's too much competition."

Vendors argued against the increase, "but we don't really have a whole lot of power," Roberts said. "All we can do is kick and scream and moan."

Eight of the nine governorappointees who make up the Aloha Stadium Authority voted to raise the rental fees on March 31. The ninth member was absent.

"Basically there had been no increases in the past six years," said Patrick Leonard, the stadium authority's spokesman. "It was just time to do it based on the cost of living. The stadium had not made any rental increases for years."

Swap meet vendors have always unofficially touted themselves as a low-cost, alternative to Waikiki. But the jump in rent is forcing many of them to rethink their futures in a business with marginal returns.

Kung Lov, who spent the past 15 years scratching out a living selling T-shirts at the swap meet, said he is giving up and plans to move to Los Angeles to work in his sister's Chinese-Cambodian restaurant.

"Cannot make a living here," said Lov, 49, who last year grossed $30,000 in T-shirt sales. "Too hard."

Other vendors said they can't raise prices because of the attitudes of repeat customers like Art and Donna Meyers of Scranton, Pa., who shop at the swap meet about once every year when they visit their daughter on O'ahu.

"You come here to beat the prices in Waikiki," said Donna Meyers. "You don't come out here to sweat in the sun for hours to pay the same prices you can find right near your hotel."

The swap meet operates on Wednesdays, Saturdays and Sundays, with the biggest attendance of 13,000 to 14,000 people typically coming on Sundays.

But overall attendance for May dropped 1 percent from the year before, said Jeffrey Bareng, operations manager for Spartanburg, S.C.-based Centerplate, which took over running the swap meet in September.

June's attendance was "flat" and July has been "pretty OK," said Bareng, who said he did not yet have raw numbers for this month.

For the year, Bareng said, "We've seen increases here and decreases there. Overall, it's been a wash."

Centerplate has tried to increase attendance, Bareng said, by putting on an "All American Barbecue" for the Fourth of July weekend and by planning an upcoming classic car show "to create more excitement."

The company has bought more advertising in touristoriented publications that circulate throughout Waikiki and in military newspapers. In November, Centerplate also began printing a daily guide of swap meet vendors, which is handed to shoppers when they pay their 50 cent admission fee.

But none of the efforts has increased attendance or sales, let alone made up for the increased rental fees, said Gayle Boc, who sells car care products at the swap meet.

On a good day, which hasn't happened lately, Boc will sell five cases worth of products. Lately, she's been down to about 2 1/2 cases and on some days she'll sell only one.

For what was supposed to be a busy Fourth of July weekend, Boc said she made only $30.

"It's unbelievable," said Boc. "It's been just horrible. They keep promising to bring out more customers, but it's not happening. We're definitely not getting more bang for the buck."