19-03-2025
Santa Fe launching grant program to help businesses with crime, vandalism
Operators of small businesses in Santa Fe could get some help fighting burglaries and vandalism if a new city program designed to address such issues gets off the ground before the end of the year as expected.
The Santa Fe City Council approved $250,000 in one-time funding for the program Feb. 26. The Office of Economic Development will work in conjunction with the Community Services Department to administer and operate it.
Economic Development Director Johanna Nelson has hired Santa Fe-based consulting firm Prospera Partners to study how the program should be structured. She said preliminary plans call for microgrants of less than $20,000 for business owners to help them better protect their property from burglars and vandals, perhaps in the form of security cameras, alarms, lights and locks.
Nelson described the initiative as a pilot program that will be evaluated after its first year to determine if it works.
'If it does, we want to seek outside funding [to continue the program],' she said.
Staff members from Prospera Partners and city officials will be gathering feedback from business owners so the program can be put together in a way that addresses their needs, Nelson said.
'We're very much in the research phase,' she said.
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Malek Belghiti Alaoui, one of the partners in the Yalla Shawarma food truck on South St. Francis Drive, had a new surveillance system installed.
While there will be some minor startup costs associated with launching the initiative, Nelson said the idea is for a heavy majority of the $250,000 to wind up being awarded as grants. She said she hopes and believes the grants can be awarded before the end of the year.
'A more ambitious goal would be by the start of the fiscal year,' she said, referring to July 1.
Many councilors who spoke about the program at the Feb. 26 meeting expressed a desire to see it be as accessible as possible, Nelson said, adding idea will be a priority for the city staff.
While burglaries and theft are a significant concern for many small-business owners in Santa Fe, Nelson said it was her impression many others are just as worried about vandalism and squalor. For instance, she said she has heard from many downtown business operators who open their establishment in the morning and routinely find human waste on their doorstep, requiring a cleanup.
One Santa Fe business that has experienced both burglary and vandalism is the Yalla Shawarma food truck, whose owners sell Moroccan-style Mediterranean food from a site on South St. Francis Drive. The business was victimized two nights in a row in November, sustaining $7,000 in damage.
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Lunchtime patrons place an order March 13 at the Yalla Shawarma food truck on South St. Francis Drive.
Malek Belghiti Alaoui, part of the truck's ownership group, said he and his partners were able to reopen the truck about a month later after an online fundraising campaign netted nearly $7,000. He said he was very excited to hear about the city's plans to launch the crime mitigation initiative.
'Absolutely, anything that could help somebody to create an environment where we can feel safe and do business and encourage others,' he said.
Belghiti Alaoui said his business has operated without incident since it reopened. He and his partners responded to the incidents by significantly enhancing their security and protection measures, including adding surveillance cameras.
Those improvements were not inexpensive, he said, noting the total came to about $2,000. He said he would welcome the chance to apply for a microgrant from the city for additional equipment or for enhancements to the equipment already in place.
'You can go to so many upgrades,' Alaoui said.
Another Santa Fe business that has endured crime issues is F1 Cyclery, which opened in September at 1189 Parkway Drive in the Siler Rufina District. Pedro Murga, one of the partners in the venture, said the shop was targeted twice within its first three months — once in September when floor-to-ceiling windows were broken, allowing burglars to make off with several bikes, and again in November, when someone tried to drive a vehicle through the front window.
After that, Murga said he invested in heavy retractable steel shutters that allow him to seal the business every night. He also has installed motion-activated security cameras that allow him to monitor the property from his home computer.
Murga laughed when he was asked if the additions have provided him with any peace of mind. He said a small bird has nested next to one of the cameras, sometimes triggering it to begin operating in the middle of the night and alerting Murga there is some activity at the business.
'Sometimes at 3 o'clock in the morning, [the bird] decides to wake us up. That makes it hard to go back to sleep,' he said.
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Libby Maclaren, left, and Anne Vidovich of Santa Fe browse the menu at the Yalla Shawarma food truck on South St. Francis Drive on March 13.
Murga said he wasn't sure if a grant program for security and protection equipment was the best way to address the crime issues. But he applauded the city for making an effort to fight the problem.
'That's a great start. That's awesome,' he said.
A more effective approach, he said, might be to apply stricter penalties to those arrested for committing such crimes.
'We need to teach thieves a lesson,' Murga said. 'There's no punishment for a lot of them.'
Nelson said the problem has gotten so bad in parts of the city that it is beginning to affect the bottom line of business owners.
'This has almost become a baked-in item in the cost of doing business,' she said.
During the Feb. 26 meeting, the council also approved the appropriation of $150,000 for help fund the Office of Economic Development's Buy Local campaign, a program aimed at promoting and incentivizing shopping at local businesses.
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F1 Cyclery partner Pedro Murga take a new bicycle down to the first floor of the shop on Jan. 30. Murga said the shop, which opened in September, was targeted twice within its first three months.
Nelson has said the initiative is a priority for her office. The idea is to sustain whatever gains are made during the campaign over the long haul. Too often, she said, such initiatives lose steam or are forgotten after just a few months of emphasis.
As with the anti-crime program, feedback from local business owners about what would allow the program to succeed will be sought and compiled, she said.
Nelson said she is especially interested in exploring the idea of whether some of the tariffs planned by the Trump administration will provide an opening for some local manufacturers or business operators to capture a larger share of their market.
'Having a strong framework is getting us in good shape for whatever comes this way,' she said.
