City council narrowly passes shopping cart, panhandling restrictions

The Las Cruces City Council voted 4-3 in favor of two controversial public safety bills during a six-and-half-hour meeting on Aug. 5. 

The bills allow Las Cruces police to enforce prohibitions on solicitation on private property, prohibit some solicitation on medians and create a new law banning shopping carts outside shopping centers. 

The new law also places increased restrictions on businesses to take better care of their shopping carts at risk of jeopardizing their business licenses. 

Mayor Eric Enriquez was joined by councilors Bill Mattiace, Becki Graham and Cassie McClure in approving the measures. Councilors Becky Corran and Yvonne Flores joined Mayor Pro Tem Johana Bencomo in opposition. 

Before and during the vote, opponents of the changes decried them as inhumane and ineffective even as the police chief Jeremy Story said the new laws would help his officers prevent crime. 

“Our officers know people on the street by name – all of them – because we are the ones left to deal with them over and over,” Story said. 

But Story’s enthusiasm for the proposals was matched by hesitation and condemnation from civil rights organizations and local officials responsible for indigent services in Las Cruces. 

"We're targeting people with the least amount of power," said Nicole Martinez, executive director of Community of Hope.

Those who opposed the bills also pointed to a lack of affordable housing and access to resources as the critical drivers for the increased presence of unhoused residents. 

The first bill, Council Bill 25-007, also known as the solicitation bill, makes solicitation or loitering on or near a median illegal, punishable by a fine of up to $500 or 90 days in jail. 

A judge could order community service or mandate mental health or substance abuse treatment. Those services are currently very limited in Las Cruces, although the city has suggested they plan to expand them. 

The bill also clarified the language in the city’s existing solicitation ordinance, which had become unconstitutional and unenforceable. 

The solicitation bill presents itself as a traffic safety ordinance, its preamble stating that pedestrian fatalities in the city increased 150 percent from 2020 to 2023 and that New Mexico has led the country in pedestrian deaths per capita for seven years. But a Bulletin inquiry about how many of those deaths were related to solicitation in the median – more commonly called panhandling – resulted in the police department failing to provide an example. 

Public records such as news releases and news articles indicate that none of the pedestrian killed by cars in recent years were panhandling at the time of their deaths. 

The second bill, Council Bill 25-008, also known as the shopping cart bill, would create a new section of municipal code addressing businesses that use shopping carts and people who use them outside of a business.

Businesses would be required to prevent shopping carts from leaving their property by affixing restraints to them and securing them outside of business hours. They would also be required to document plans to prevent shopping cart removal. Non-compliance would result in fines and potentially jeopardize the business’ ability to operate in Las Cruces.

The shopping cart bill also penalizes people caught with a shopping cart outside a business. A conviction would be a petty misdemeanor carrying a potential jail term of up to six months and a fine of up to $500. However, a judge could choose to sentence the person to community service, substance abuse counseling, or mental health treatment.

LCPD has said it would begin implementation with a “non-enforcement” period during which officers would approach shopping cart users and tell them they need to find an alternative.