Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities
Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities
This is a Humpty Dumpty economy. New Mexico has had a great fall. There are cracks in the economy everywhere.
With the governor’s latest health order, New Mexico is still barely open for business. Moms and Pops are kicked to the curb while the governor’s message continues to be- shop inside the big-box stores and be with the crowds there.
All businesses and offices need to be open to the public now, with owners, employees and customers taking health safety measures and practicing social distancing. Customers need to be able to go inside to shop and to buy now. Not in two weeks. Now.
Some hurting businesses might not be around in two weeks. Many of our local businesses cannot survive curbside.
We all need to have personal responsibility, not only those inside the box boxes.
As a state senator, I am bombarded daily by business horror stories.
This one is like a black comedy. The best story lately: One of my local nurseries was nailed with a cease-and -desist order to close. He was ordered to close at a time when nurseries do 80% of their business, during this 45-day span in spring … which is right now.
This owner was clever and went to an open local paint store and made a deal to set up plant sales inside the paint store. The state approved.
So to the state, paint guys know how to social distance and nursery guys don’t?
At a time we should be as grateful as ever to our truckers, those critical drivers who are delivering our food and medical supplies, the Motor Vehicle Department is making it difficult for them to renew their all-important commercial driver’s licenses.
Calling local businesses that want customers to come inside “greedy” is a mystery to me. The financial rescue effort is a mystery to all of us. We hear that government will loan our businesses money, that is, if our businesses have enough capital assets to keep employees on their payrolls.
Most of our local businesses probably have only minimal sales or none at all. Plus, our New Mexico businesses probably have a mortgage at the bank or an inventory payment due soon.
As all of this financial ruin is happening, our businesses are considered to be greedy if they want to open.
The horror stories continue. The repeating storyline: big-box stores make extraordinary profits while Moms and Pops are pushed to the curb for curbside only.
According to the governor, our lives will forever change. With social distancing, will we ever get a professional haircut again? Goodbye to even more professional tradesmen and women who took a risk to open a business and invested here but will now exit our state.
I predict New Mexico’s businesses will soon open with customers inside, with or without the governor’s approval. Her citizens are on the edge of open resistance because they know, as the nursery rhyme goes, “All the king’s horses and all the king’s men couldn't put New Mexico’s Humpty Dumpty economy together again.”
Pat Woods, R-Broadview, is a New Mexico state senator. Contact him at:
