Days after a contentious city council meeting ended with the passage of new laws aimed at curbing the presence of shopping carts and “aggressive” solicitation, it’s clear that the debate is far from over with much of the discourse unspooling online.
Mesilla Valley Community of Hope, the area’s largest resource for unhoused residents, posted on Facebook that a woman using a shopping cart to ferry her belongings had a cart taken from her. Her belongings, the post said, were scattered across the pavement.
“Yesterday a business approached this woman, threw all of her belongings on the street and took the cart back to their business (they don't want to get fined even though the ordinance is not yet in effect),” the post on Aug. 7 said, calling for donations of suitcases.
The following day, the account posted thanks to people who contributed suitcases and rolling devices, adding, “We are still working out a sustainable alternative to carts as the ordinance effective date draws near.”
Nicole Martinez, the executive director of Community of Hope, said that the shelter does not typically post about encounters like this, which she said happen frequently, and that the intention was not to inspire a witch hunt on the unnamed business.
Martinez did not divulge the store's name, but the Bulletin confirmed that the accusations were leveled against employees of a local Albertsons. Jeremy Story, chief of the Las Cruces Police Department, said officers were aware of the claims.
“All three Albertsons stores have denied any of their employees were involved in that incident,” Story told the Bulletin. “Almost all retailers do not allow their employees to intervene in shoplifting and would not allow their employees to try to recover a cart from someone’s possession.”
The Bulletin reached out to Albertsons’ corporate office to inquire about the company’s policies about retrieval of shopping carts, but a spokesperson did not respond to the question.
Still, Martinez said that incidents like this are more common than most in the community know. And she fears that new laws have aroused harsher treatment from residents against their unhoused neighbors.
“We can’t just sit by,” Martinez said in an interview with the Bulletin.
Meanwhile, on another corner of the Las Cruces-centered internet, the two activist groups that advocated for the laws focused on a T-shirt worn by City Councilor Johana Bencomo during the Aug. 5 council meeting where the ordinances were approved. The T-shirt bore the slogan, “Decriminalize poverty” and the logo of the American Civil Liberties Union.
Several posts and dozens of comments on Facebook pages run by Businesses for a Safer Las Cruces and Coalition of Conservatives in Action celebrated the passage of the bills, before honing in on Bencomo’s shirt. Some members also indicated they believed Community of Hope falsified the tossed shopping cart post.
Bencomo was joined by civil rights groups and two other councilors in characterizing the laws as inhuman, ineffective and an effort to criminalize homelessness. In doing so, she garnered the ire of the groups that supported the laws.
Later that same day, the Las Cruces Police Department published two news releases on Facebook with expectations about how and when the news laws would take effect. The same releases were sent to news organizations the following day.
The laws and LCPD’s expectation
The solicitation law seeks to prohibit solicitation, such as panhandling, in smaller medians, penalizing people for entering roadways to seek money and allowing LCPD to enforce solicitation prohibitions on private property.
Story told the Bulletin that the section on aggressive solicitation, which was already illegal in Las Cruces yet mired in constitutional questions, goes into effect immediately.
“Enforcement of the roadway-related parts of the ordinances will be delayed to allow for education,” Story said.
In the release, LCPD listed seven examples of behavior that could violate the law. Those are:
The second law prohibits shopping cart use outside of a business’s property. It also requires businesses to submit documents detailing their plans to prevent their carts from being taken.
Dozens of unhoused residents use carts to carry and store belongings around Las Cruces. Some residents also use them as components of temporary structures, while others take groceries from stores to bus stops. All of that activity is now illegal.
However, Story has said several times, and LCPD reiterated in a news release, that this law will not be enforced for 60 days.
“Las Cruces police will delay enforcement for 60 days, in part, so retail establishments can submit a plan and application. LCPD also wants to allow time for all parties to become educated on the new regulations and aware of the requirement,” the news release said.
Story added that the educational work will fall on some police officers, as well as community advocates.
“There will be an education campaign that includes messaging from community development and our communications office. Officers/community advocates will also personally educate people with carts about the upcoming enforcement of the ordinance,” Story said.
The news release and comments from Story also made clear that businesses are not required to retrieve shopping carts.
“The ordinance is very clear that the store does not need to retrieve carts from people (only abandoned carts). We put out a post reinforcing that businesses should not try to take carts from people and that the ordinance is not even in effect yet,” Story said. “We will discuss this with each business individually as a part of their shopping cart plan approval.”
