Does trouble just go away?
Crime, 911 calls drop around Adam Food Market after nuisance lawsuit dismissed
Acrowd of people gathered out front of Adam Food Market on Nov. 30, sitting on the sidewalk and leaning against the brick wall. Several could be seen smoking drugs off of foil, and a woman loudly offered “beans” — slang for fentanyl pills — to those going inside.
Another woman started a fire on the ground near the entrance as raindrops fell and temperatures hovered in the 30s. She lowered herself over the fire until the flames licked at the bottom of her jeans.
The inside of Adam Market, in contrast, was as quiet and clean as any other convenience store on East Central — a far cry from the scene out front.
The business became a flashpoint on East Central after the city of Albuquerque attempted to shut down what it called a problem property earlier this year. In a lawsuit filed in January, the city alleged the property generated high numbers of calls for service and was surrounded by crime.
The lawsuit was dismissed in late August. In the case against property owner Sharif Rabadi, and market operators Anna Marie Delgado and Jamal Kahalah, the city cited five fentanyl buys made by undercover officers in or around the store, six homicides near the area and more than 500 calls for police service in the year before.
However, in the months since, calls for service, arrests and incident reports have plummeted, according to data from the Albuquerque Police Department. Calls for service dropped by about 70% between March and September, according to records obtained through an Inspection of Public Records Act request.
Data provided by APD also showed that, after a high of 99 incidents in January, that number fell to seven in June, although it crept back up to 41 in November. Arrest numbers did remain high, for a single location, at the market — but still decreased 16% in the past year.
APD officials said they were doing more to fight crime in the southeast area of the city in general, but were surprised at — and doubtful about — such a precipitous drop in calls for service in the area surrounding Adam Market.
Southeast area Cmdr. Luke Languit said that Adam Market had long been a magnet for drug use, and, by proxy, also attracts dealers and violence.
“You look at a lot of the individuals in this particular area, within a couple of minutes, you’ll see that they’re involved in substance abuse,” he said in a Journal interview.
Languit said the property is being sold and police are looking forward to working with the new owners “about what they want to do with that property, knowing the issues that surround it.”
However, Franchesca Perdue, an Albuquerque police spokeswoman, said recently that the “conversations are still ongoing and no deal has been reached yet” for the property’s sale.
The current owners of Adam Market declined to comment for this story.
Britany Schaffer, the attorney representing the building tenant, said increased police presence at the location proves that APD and the city still have viable options to decrease crime in the area. She said the tenant noticed more frequent patrols after the lawsuit was filed.
“There was more APD patrolling than there ever had been,” Schaffer said. “That seemed to be enough to clear up the area. They noticed a stark decrease in the criminal activity that was happening around the area.”
Schaffer said the lawsuit left a dark cloud over the property. The reputation that Adam Food Market was a hotbed for criminal activity prevented the current tenant from buying the building, she said — despite the drop in crime. It was even challenging for her client to hire private security, she said; instead, two employees were hired to “monitor the parking lot.”
Schaffer said her client has noticed more people camping in front of the market since the closure of Walmart and other stores in the area. However, he is “adamant” about not calling the police in the wake of the lawsuit, she said.
The drop in incident reports extended to a half-mile radius around Adam Food Market, according to APD-provided data. But not everyone in the area believes the crime problem is improving, at least not from an anecdotal perspective.
Mohammad Kahalah, owner of Dallas Corner Store, which is catty-corner from Adam Food Market, said he and his employees have seen “a lot of heavy police activity” in the past few months. But he said the consistency is lacking — some days he won’t see an officer and others will see one “every three minutes.”
Kahalah said response times are long and incidents often resolve before police arrive. He said he can handle most issues “a lot better than police do.”
In his eight years running the store, he said 2023 has been the worst year when it comes to the amount of drug use, homelessness and mental illness visible “all on one block.”
“When you drive from Wyoming down this way, or vice versa, going east, just the view that you’re seeing it kind of deters people,” Kahalah said.
But he said he rarely feels in danger and sees those using drugs and loitering in the area as more of a nuisance. He said he and his employees strike a balance by being respectful but not allowing them to hang around the building.
Kahalah said most people listen.
“You have to go in with respect. ... If I just went out there and cussed everybody out, I’m sure I would get a different reaction,” he said. “They’ll give you the same respect back in most cases.”
Kahalah said one business, such as Adam Food Market, can “set the whole image” for the area. He added, when it comes to running a business in the area, “You kind of focus on what you have and just make the best out of it.”
Maria Castillo is a resident in the area and the cook at God Cares for You Ministry, which sits across from Adam Food Market. She said she used to shop at the convenience store. That was before she started feeling unsafe in the store.
“It’s not worth my life,” Castillo said.
Now, she totes a shopping cart to either Walmart or Smith’s — a walk that takes between 30 and 40 minutes and spans a few miles. Castillo, who helps feed homeless people at the ministry, said she thinks the unhoused are often blamed for crime in the area.
Herman Montiel, the ministry’s director, said the organization comes from a place of giving. For that reason, it rarely has conflicts with those who live on the streets and congregate in the area.
“Because of what we do, they tend to take those behaviors elsewhere, I guess,” he said. “You give somebody something that’s warm, or even in the summer, cold, and you say, ‘I love you’ with that. Because they don’t hear that very often.”
Montiel said ministry workers try not to call 911 but have a few times when someone appeared to be suffering from an acute mental illness. He said the last time they called, officers didn’t show up, and eventually the person left on their own.
Twice, the ministry has been stolen from, Montiel said. However, crime might not be as bad as imagined by some, he continued, although he said he likely has a different perspective from business owners in the area.
“I think there’s a lot of intentional effort to address it,” Montiel said. “I know there’s many sides of the story.”
He said the unhoused population the ministry serves has grown. Several years ago, it would see 30 people a day, Montiel said. Now, it’s around 100.
Around the corner, Ben Diep, owner of G&H Oriental Market behind Adam Food Market, admired his new addition — a sturdy, gated iron fence around his store and parking lot. It cost him $10,000, but he said it was well worth it, providing a buffer between his storefront and those who live on the street, ebbing and flowing from Adam Food Market.
At that moment, on Nov. 30, the sidewalk outside the fence was empty. Police and city workers had shooed the unhoused away minutes earlier.
“It only lasts about five minutes, and then they come back,” Diep said.
Sure enough, the crowds and their belongings returned soon after, ready for the cycle to begin again.
Like his neighbors, Diep described the unhoused and other loiterers as more of an annoyance. Over the past few years, Diep said he has watched those on the streets around his store change. He said it was mainly older people in the beginning.
“Right now, I don’t know why, but lots of young people,” said Diep, with a note of concern and empathy in his voice.
Instead of calling police, Diep said he calls 311 — at the suggestion of dispatchers — if he needs assistance getting someone off his property. He said he just didn’t like to bother officers, but if he truly felt in danger, he would call 911.
But that has rarely happened in his 18 years here.
While several business owners seemed to have a tailored approach to the problems in the area, Diep does not take kindly to Adam Food Market’s approach. If it was up to him, he said, he would have the business shut down. He believes its employees encourage the congregation out front.
At 70 years old, Diep said it is his age, not his environment, that has him considering closing up shop. He thinks he has a few years left in him.
What happens to G&H — where people filed in and out for an assortment of fresh produce and groceries — is unclear.
“I want somebody to take over, but nobody wants to take over, because of the area,” Diep said.