Southern N.M. needs enforcement to stop virus
Irecently wrote a letter to our governor offering suggestions about what might be done here in Southern New Mexico to reduce our COVID-19 cases. (We are experiencing a horrible rise.) This was her form letter reply, hardly helpful:
“Thank you for contacting the Office of the Governor. This message is to acknowledge receipt of your message. If you have questions and concerns about the coronavirus, call our COVID-19 hotline at 1-855-600-3453 for instructions. You can stay up to date on the latest information at www. NewMexico.gov. While you are there you can find additional resources and ways to report your concerns.”
I have previously contacted the COVID19 hotline as well as the district managers of several grocery and convenience store chains. My plea was to enforce the mask and social-distancing rules in their stores.
I am 78 years old and I have underlying medical conditions. I live in a rural area, own a small farm and have an adopted 9-year-old child. If I contract COVID-19, I might die. I am afraid to shop in many stores in my area.
The places where I can shop, where everyone wears a mask and keeps social distance, are the Mescalero Travel Center and the local Ruidoso Walmart. These stores are safe.
Almost no one wears masks in the farm-supply stores (in Roswell), and masks are barely worn in convenience stores. Convenience store management argues that women employees, if they try to enforce the “mask” rule, are vulnerable to harassment and possibly violence. The same goes for the other large grocery store in our area whose name starts with an ”A.”
Most convenience and grocery stores sell liquor, have heavy traffic and can be better regulated. Liquor authority enforcement can be used to make convenience stores undergo the added expense of having someone stationed at their front doors. (Without enforcement, their liquor licenses could be temporarily suspended.)
Maybe some of our citizens who do not own masks will begin carrying them and use them elsewhere.
Hiring guards would be an added economic burden, but nothing compared to the burden on those of us who have closed our businesses entirely because of the pandemic.
Convenience stores often operate at the gateways to our southern towns on major highways, and service both tourists, farmers and cowboys. They sell ice, beer, often liquor to go, burritos, hot dogs and chewing tobacco — essential items. These stores are often crowded, with waiting lines. (The same might be true of Santa Fe and neighboring counties.)
For now, I am avoiding our crowded convenience and farm-supply stores, where almost no one wears a mask, not even the employees. Instead of driving two miles to a convenience store to buy milk, I drive 24 miles to Walmart.
Maybe the governor will do something down here in Republican country: Develop tighter regulations to force stores selling liquor to follow the mask rule. Or perhaps she will continue to send out meaningless form letters to concerned constituents.