I am writing today to announce the closure of the New Mexico Independent. After three and a half years of operation in New Mexico, the board of the American Independent News Network, has decided to shift publication of its news…
While environmental activists played their part yesterday during demonstrations at the capitol building, going so far as to dress up as solar panels and to sing the tune of “You Are My Sunshine,” their counterparts, the anti-cap-and-trade contingency who has…
Roughly one quarter of University of New Mexico students are unimpressed with the state’s flagship public school, according to a survey that questioned college students about their higher education experiences.
Just before sunrise, the House shot SB 40, Concealed Weapons in Certain Restaurants, to the Governor’s desk without much of a bang.
By a vote of 54-12 the bill, sponsored by Sen. George Muñoz, passed during the waning hours of the session. Though SB 40 saw fierce debate in the Senate, with five attempted amendments failing, the House held no debate. The bill allows concealed carrier permit holders to enter restaurants that serve only beer and wine while wearing their weapon.
The New Mexico Restaurant Association strongly opposed the bill, as Executive Director Carol Wight explained on this site (in The Independent Forum).
Other Forum panelists opposed the bill, including former Albuquerque Mayor Jim Baca, and a former director of the Middle Rio Grande Conservancy District, Bill Turner, who said, “I haven’t packed a gun in 50 years, but as a gun-totin’ field geologist working in Wyoming in 1960, the only place gun-totin’ people had to check their guns were places that sold booze.”
Under the law restaurants that did not want patrons to carry concealed weapons inside have the right, as do all private businesses, to post signs stating that concealed weapons are prohibited.
