ALBUQUERQUE: Out of towners – be careful if you park your car with out-of-state plates at a city park, community center or even a library. You might get a few questions from an officer or city official.
“We did give ourselves the power to question out-of-state visitors, people with out-of-state license plates, on whether or not they are following the quarantine rules,” Mayor Tim Keller said at a recent news conference when he announced that he was signing a new emergency order.
When media asked exactly what he meant.
“We would go into the city facility, open space of that nature and if there were folks identifiable being from out of state through a license plate, we would say, ‘Hey have you already quarantined for 14 days?’” Keller said. “And if they haven’t, we would pass on their information to the Department of Health.”
The mayor is trying to help enforce Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham’s public health order that requires all out-of-state travelers to quarantine for two weeks.
In Mayor Keller’s order, it says “visitors may be required to demonstrate residency by producing a valid identification including but not limited to New Mexico driver’s license or ID card.”
The order also includes anyone visiting Tingley Beach, bike trails and a city bus.
But the mayor says the city is not using the order.
“We haven’t had to use this,” Keller said. “But if we do, we could look at more severe actions like not allowing people to enter facilities unless they can demonstrate they have been here for 14 days. But these are measures we wanted to have in place if things got worse or got worse moving forward.” Full credits AP.
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