Local restaurant owner reports 6 fires outside business this year

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. – An Albuquerque restaurant owner says six fires outside his business this year have left smoke damage behind and raising concern.

Leonardo Hernandez, owner of El Sinaloense, said security video showed two men around a fire outside the restaurant early in the morning in October.

“They were here for a while. I saw them on the camera, and then they like fell asleep. Then they made the fire, and that’s when one was trying to put it out,” Hernandez said. “That’s when he kicked everything this way, and just you can still see the burn marks there of stuff.”

Hernandez said this was not the first, second or third fire outside his restaurant this year, but the sixth.

“The other one, they were probably like three weeks apart, like because other one just happened like two weeks ago, and it was right before that,” Hernandez said.

Hernandez said when fires do not start right against the restaurant, they happen somewhere else on his property. He said he noticed how often it happened, after he put up cameras at the beginning of this year.

“That’s why I have that camera up there because that’s the one that gets the wide angle for everything, and that’s how we’ve been able to see them. Because in the past, I just put it up the beginning of this year, and that’s when we noticed like all the crazy stuff that happened,” Hernandez said. “We’ve seen them start fires in the past, but it hasn’t been as bad as it is now. Like this is, I’m getting worried now because it’s so close.”

Hernandez said he asked the city for help, but he believes there is only so much the city can do.

“The city has tried to plan to ensure that there is a warm bed available for anyone in the city who may need it. That includes activating our winter shelter plan,” Brittany Karenzis, homeless innovations officer for the City of Albuquerque, said.

Walter Adams, deputy director of field operations for Albuquerque Community Safety, said Albuquerque Community Safety (ACS) and other city agencies started offering overnight shelter transportation this month as part of the winter shelter plan.

“A big part of that was being proactive in our response, being proactive in going out and engaging with individuals. Not only through the the phone number that they call, but also being proactive and going out and engaging,” Adams said.

Adams said ACS transported 6,300 people from November of last year to March 31 of this year, up 4,000 from the previous year. He also said ACS has offered a warm bed to 200 people so far this month.

The city said getting people to choose a shelter bed instead of staying on the street remains a challenge.

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