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Shoplifting crackdown
The Santa Fe Police Department on Friday conducted an operation targeting (no pun intended) retail operations on the Southside. Operation “Shopping Cart,” SFPD says, “focused on the increase in shoplifting, disorderly conduct and unsafe driving in the Zafarano Drive business district.” According to a news release, the effort netted six arrests and the service of several active arrest warrants, including: shoplifting; a felony probation violation; two warrants for felony shoplifting; three warrants for misdemeanor shoplifting; one warrant for aggravated fleeing a law enforcement officer; one warrant for burglary; one warrant for possession of controlled substances; and one miscellaneous misdemeanor warrant. “Business owners were happy to see the extra police presence,” the news release notes. The efforts came not a moment too soon, based on some of the Facebook comments the announcement engendered. “Glad to see that we haven’t accepted this behavior as a community, because for a while, it’s appeared that paying for your things when you leave the store was optional,” one person wrote. “Thank God! It’s been so unsafe for patrons & folks who work around there,” wrote another. Others suggested SFPD add additional shopping locations, such as College Plaza South, for patrol. “I’m a small business owner in the shopping center and everyday we face with Individuals wanting to steal from our store,” one person wrote. “We have been threatened with needles, pepper spray, rocks, an axe and so on.” (SFPD responded and said College Plaza South had been placed on the list for a similar operation). Still another person asked SFPD to target Santa Fe Place stores, such as JC Penney and Dillard’s.
Gov signs cannabis agreement with pueblos
With adult recreational cannabis sales starting April 1, Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham’s office announced on Friday an agreement with Picuris and Pojoaque pueblos to support the pueblos’ participation in the recreational cannabis industry. According to the governor’s office, with cannabis still illegal under federal law, the state’s Cannabis Regulation Act allows the Cannabis Control Division to enter into intergovernmental agreements with tribes and pueblos and prevent federal law enforcement on tribal lands (which has happened here and elsewhere). “The economic opportunities provided by the recreational and medical cannabis industries are truly game-changing, and sovereign tribal nations should benefit alongside the state,” the governor said in a statement. Pueblo of Picuris Gov. Craig Quanchello said in a statement the agreement “creates a meaningful opportunity for the Pueblo to engage in well-regulated and coordinated legal cannabis markets for the benefit and protection of our community,” while Pojoaque Pueblo Gov. Jenelle Roybal said cannabis “is an exciting new opportunity to diversify our economic development, and revenues from a Pueblo cannabis enterprise will support tribal governmental programs and the surrounding community.”
Meanwhile, as the state gears up for sales, it remains unclear how many new stores will open this Friday. The state, according to the Associated Press, has licensed more than 500 business locations, 225 of which are retail operations. The owners of Endo, near the corner of Agua Fría Street and Siler Road, say they won’t be ready, pointing to delays in finding a property in Santa Fe’s tight real estate market, along with the complicated regulatory environment. Duke Rodriguez, CEO and founder of Ultra Health, tells the Albuquerque Journal the state will be over-saturated with providers and will have to “pare back” 100 of them in a year’s time.
City embarks on park upgrades
The City of Santa Fe announced last week its Parks Division is undertaking a variety of projects to improve and beautify the city’s outdoor spaces. “We’re starting with Herb Martinez Park tennis courts and working our way through all the city courts,” Parks and Open Space Department Director Melissa McDonald said in a statement. “We also are set to install new sod at the Plaza, where the drought has damaged the grass. There are some great changes happening at the Municipal Recreation Complex as well, with new lighting, irrigation and drainage work. While this work is being done, we continue to listen to our constituents’ ideas and desires for the parks.” Some of the MRC improvements include improved bathrooms, as well as a new sculpture/art park with permanent and temporary installations coordinated by the Arts and Culture Department. At Swan Park, the 18-hole Disc Golf course is nearly completed and will open soon, and the Keith Haring Fitness court is currently open, with additional landscape work surrounding it underway and a ribbon cutting ceremony slated for June. The Parks Division also is planning on a pollinator garden for Alvarado Park; potential new gates for parks that use gates; and, should future funding permit, benches and playground equipment in the Railyard Park.
COVID-19 by the numbers
New cases: 150; 517,206 total cases
Deaths: nine; Santa Fe County has had 261 deaths thus far; there have been 7,197 total fatalities statewide. Hospitalizations: 103; Patients on ventilators: nine
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s “community levels” tracking system—which uses case rates along with two hospital metrics in combination to determine the state of the virus on a county level—all 33 New Mexico’s counties currently have “green”—aka low—levels. The CDC updates its map every Thursday.
Breakthrough cases: According to the most recent weekly vaccine report, between Feb. 21-March 21, 50.9% of COVID-19 cases were among people who had not completed a primary vaccination series; 21.5% were among those who had completed the series but had not received a booster; and 27.6% were among those who were fully vaccinated and boosted. For hospitalizations, those figures change to 71.4%, 13.1% and 15.4%. The percentages shift to 74.7%, 16.2% and 9.1% for fatalities.
Vaccinations: 91% percent of adults 18 years and older have had at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine and 77.6% have completed their primary series; 45.5% of adults 18 years and older have had a booster shot; 12-17-year-old age group: 71.2% of people have had at least one dose and 61.6% have completed their primary series; Children ages 5-11: 39.3% have had at least one dose of the Pfizer vaccine and 31% have completed their primary; Santa Fe County: 99% of people 18 and older have had at least one dose and 87.2% have completed their primary series.
Resources: Vaccine registration; Booster registration Free at-home rapid antigen tests; Self-report a positive COVID-19 test result to the health department; COVID-19 treatment info: oral treatments Paxlovid (age 12+) and Molnupiravir (age 18+); and monoclonal antibody treatments. Toolkit for immunocompromised individuals. People seeking treatment who do not have a medical provider can call NMDOH’s COVID-19 hotline at 1-855-600-3453.
You can read all of SFR’s COVID-19 coverage here.
Listen up
The most recent episode of the Santa Fe Art Institute’s Tilt podcast, “Finding Midtown,” delves into the Midtown property “as a place of personal growth, opportunity and bonding, art-making and performance, and a growing center for film, among many other things.” Guests include Santa Fe University of Art and Design alum Dylan Tenorio, a Native American artist and musician from Kewa Pueblo, and former SFUAD faculty member and Searchlight New Mexico writer Alicia Inez Guzmán.
What’s old is new
Barron’s considers the “appeal of ancient building techniques” in New Mexico, aka, rammed earth construction with layers of lava—or scoria—in the walls, such as that used by Marcus Miner and Tim Miller for their home in Las Cruces, designed by Arizona-based architecture firm DUST. “The ethos of Galisteo Basin Preserve is to build a home that’s rooted in the land and to preserve the natural landscape as much as possible,” Miner tells Barron’s, “We visited houses built by DUST with scoria, which is almost a mystical process to see. It seems both experimental and modern and yet also historic.” Jonathan Feldman, founding partner and CEO of Feldman Architecture in San Francisco, says the ancient building technique appeals to modern architects “interested in simplicity and sustainability.” Feldman’s company has built many rammed earth homes in California, but says those built in New Mexico can be particularly beautiful because of the various colors found in the dirt here. Cade Hayes, co-founding principal of DUST, says the project was inspired by the desert and the homes built by Spanish and Indigenous people from centuries ago. “We’re not trying to replicate the past,” he says, “but we do want to understand the cultural context in which we’re building.”
If you build it
Speaking of distinctive architecture, New Mexico Magazine spotlights three hotels in the state where one will find plenty of eye candy, architectural and otherwise, in both the immediate and nearby environs. These include Casa Blanca Inn and Suites in Farmington, built in the Spanish Colonial Hacienda style, where one can read a book in the “lush gardens” (we hear a staycation beckoning) and be in proximity to the Animas River Trail system, Bisti/De-Na-Zin Wilderness, Aztec Ruins National Monument and Mesa Verde’s cliff dwellings. Silver City’s Bear Mountain Lodge is located on 178 acres by the Gila National Forest and includes two labyrinths and a birdwatching perch. And, of course, Abiquiu Inn is just a hop, skip and jump to “the eroded buildings of the ancient Poshuouinge Pueblo—plus a great view of the Chama River Valley.”
Spring to mind
Warm weather continues today with mostly sunny skies, a high temperature near 72 degrees and north wind 10 to 15 mph becoming southwest in the afternoon. Enjoy the warm sunshine—the National Weather Service forecasts a temperature drop and precipitation tomorrow.
Thanks for reading! The Word was happy CODA won best picture at last night’s Oscars and also wants to make sure you saw one of the winning films from SFR’s Three-Minute Film Festival: ASL Sounds from SITE Santa Fe.
