Serving the High Plains
Serving the High Plains
Threatening to write a citation for “inciting an event” during the coronavirus pandemic, New Mexico State Police on Saturday shut down the Tabletop Cooperative Harvest Fest at Tucumcari’s Wailes Park.
The festival would have served as a fundraiser for the organization that seeks to guide or recruit beginning farmers and ranchers for the region.
Saturday’s event was scheduled to host three food trucks, two music acts and a New Mexico chile cookout in conjunction with the weekly Tucumcari Farmers Market at the park. Harvest Fest also drew at least six local sponsors.
The event, already scaled down the previous day at the behest of state authorities, was shut down about 11 a.m. Saturday, barely an hour after it began.
Jason Lamb, a member of the cooperative, said a state police officer confronted the group at its canopy and threatened a ticket, citing the state’s public health order that forbids public gatherings of more than 10 people.
Tabletop organizers dismantled their booth rather than risk a written citation.
“They said we were inciting an event, and they shut us down,” Lamb said. “It’s unfortunate. We through we were following the protocol we were supposed to. We did the best we could.”
The farmers market continued as usual Saturday.
Susann Mikkelson, also a member of the organization, surmised a confused resident reported the Harvest Fest to state authorities.
“I think the state police were just doing their jobs,” she said. “I think it’s unfortunate because I imagine they were alerted of it by someone. I think there was a misunderstanding with what we were trying to accomplish.”
Lamb and Mikkelson emphasized they were acting as members of the cooperative and not as Quay County Extension Service agents.
La Casa Verde Floral and Greenhouse owner David White, also a member of the cooperative and a sponsor of the event, said one state police officer contacted him at his business Thursday about the Harvest Fest and asked about its layout. White supplied the officer with a drawing of the positioning of the booths, chairs and food trucks that White said were designed to foster social distancing.
White said the officer seemed satisfied with the festival’s layout and left.
The next day, the officer returned Friday, told White he showed the festival’s layout to his superiors and urged him to dispense with the food trucks, live entertainment and chairs or face a citation for “inciting a mass gathering.”
“I thought we had everyone spaced out, plenty of room,” White recalled. “But apparently they didn’t think so.”
White indicated he found New Mexico State Police’s enforcement against Harvest Fest as arbitrary, citing Friday’s Tucumcari MainStreet Fall Vendor Market at the Historic Tucumcari Railroad Depot Plaza that had at least one food truck.
White also said the Tucumcari Farmers Market also had regularly hosted live entertainment all summer, with no problems from state police.
An email to New Mexico State Police requesting comment was not answered.
Mikkelson said Tabletop’s board would meet this week to discuss what to do with the sponsorships of the event, including the possibility of refunds.
“We just have to find other ways to raise support for it,” she said. “The progress doesn’t stop; we have to find other ways to group four our beginning farmers.”
COVID-19 has killed nearly 900 people in New Mexico and more than 209,000 in the United States since March. One day before the Harvest Fest, President Donald Trump was hospitalized with the disease.