Roswell Daily Record THE VOICE OF THE PECOS VALLEY
Vol. 123, No. 87 75¢ Daily / $1.25 Sunday
April 10, 2014
www.rdrnews.com
Council to consider ban on e-cigarettes today JILL MCLAUGHLIN RECORD STAFF WRITER
Councilors are expected to consider tonight outlawing electronic cigarettes in the same public areas that now do not allow cigarette smoking. A public hearing will be held on changing the Clean Air Ordinance to include electronic smoking devices at the 7 p.m. City Council meeting. Councilor Steve Henderson proposed the issue of adding all e-smoking devices to the city’s existing anti-smoking ordinance, as he deemed the devices a public nuisance. The Building and Lands Committee approved the ordinance amendment in February, allowing it to be considered by council. Henderson, who chaired the committee at the time, proposed he idea, saying e-cigarettes contained a vapor with nicotine.
The battery-powered devices vaporize a nicotine-filled liquid that can be flavored. The devices are typically used as an alternative to traditional cigarettes. The ordinance reads: “Recent studies show that electronic smoking devices, such as e-cigarettes, emit nicotine in their expelled vapor. To continue keeping Roswell a clean-air city, the need to ban the use of electronic smoking devices in public places is necessary.” A request by the American Legion for a club liquor license is expected to be heard tonight. The item was pulled unexpectedly from last month’s meeting at the last minute. The Legion is requesting a license to be able to sell liquor from its location on North Montana. The club is located in a community commercial district and has been granted preliminary approval by the state Alcohol and Gaming Division. A public hearing is also scheduled for this item.
THURSDAY
City staff to evaluate zoning, license of medical pot shop JILL MCLAUGHLIN RECORD STAFF WRITER
City staff will evaluate a medical marijuana disbusiness tributor’s license in the next few days following a revocation hearing Wednesday. An attorney representing Compassionate Dis-
tributors of fered to amend the business’s license to include language that specified it was a licensed producer, possessor and distributor of cannabis, pursuant to the state Compassionate Use Act.
See POT SHOP, Page A3
German POW Chew honored for service BY RANDAL SEYLER RECORD STAFF WRITER
Randal Seyler Photos
Above: American Legion member and veteran Andrew “Beau” Gamboa, left, greets Jack Chew on Wednesday at the Roswell American Legion Post. Chew was the guest of honor at the American Legion’s ceremony honoring National POW/MIA Recognition Day. Right: Chew shares photos from his memoir and cookbook, “Cook & Chat with Jack Chew,” with fellow veteran Santiago Vasquez at the American Legion Post on Wednesday.
AG backs access to fishing SANTA FE (AP) — Landowners can’t stop New Mexico sportsmen from fishing in a stream that crosses private property if the fisherman is wading or standing in the water rather than trespassing on adjacent land, Attorney General Gary King said Wednesday in a legal analysis applauded by a sportsmen group.
King reached the conclusion in a nonbinding legal opinion that could spark a fight over fishing access in a state where many prime trout streams, such as the Brazos and Pecos rivers, are bordered by private land and are small enough to wade. King said fisherman can’t trespass to gain access to public waters, but that “walking, wading or standing in a stream bed is not trespassing.”
Existing state laws and regulations don’t directly address the question of the public’s right to fish in streams crossing private land, according to King’s office. State wildlife agency rules deal with trespassing by sportsmen.
and the American Legion held a ceremony in honor of the day of remembrance. Chew spent 21 months in a German prison camp, the famous Stalag 17B about which the 1953 film “Stalag 17,” starring William Holden, was made. Chew said he regained consciousness while he was still falling out of the sky over Schweinfurt, Germany, in April 1943 and pulled his rip cord. The parachute safely deposited him on the ground, but
the Gestapo quickly set upon him with dogs and captured him.
Chew was born in China and came to the U.S. in 1934. He graduated from Albuquerque High School and worked in Arizona and Wyoming a while before volunteering for the Armed Forces. Chew said he enlisted in Albuquerque, weighing 103 pounds and standing 5-feet tall. He went to basic training in El Paso,
See CHEW, Page A3
Job fair is out of this world
Game and Fish Department rules prohibit fishing on private property without the landowner’s written permission when the land is properly posted with signs.
The agency, which is responsible for enforcing fishing and hunting rules, didn’t immediately respond to telephone calls and emails seeking comment on King’s legal analysis The New Mexico Wildlife Federation praised King’s opinion.
Feds: More New Mexicans received behavioral health services, not fewer
ALBUQUERQUE (AP) — Federal of ficials say the number of people in New Mexico getting behavioral health services through Medicaid was up, not down, following a state shake-up of the provider network last year. A federal agency, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, said a previously reported 23 percent drop in the number of people getting services reflected only parts of the state, not the entire state, the Albuquerque Journal
Jack Chew was 24 years old and wounded in the leg with shrapnel from the fuselage of a B-17 bomber, on which he was the tailgunner, when he pulled the escape hatch pin and jumped for his life. “I heard the pilot shout, ‘get the hell out of there,’ so I did,” Chew said. “We were flying at 33,000 feet and man, was it cold up there. We had to wear special suits to keep us warm.” Not only was it cold at 33,000 feet, but there wasn’t any oxygen in the atmosphere, and Chew was quickly rendered unconscious and hurling toward the Earth after he jumped out of the bomber. Chew, now 94, remembered his war-time adventures on Wednesday when American Legion Post 28 held a ceremony honoring the nation’s Prisoners of War and Missing In Action. April 9 is National POW/MIA Recognition Day
reported. The statewide data actually showed a 16 percent increase in the number of people served, the agency said in an April 3 letter to the state Human Services Department. The figure of a 23 percent reduction in services was contained in a Dec. 24 cover letter from the federal agency that accompanied the final report on a federal team’s site visit to New Mexico in September. State officials had disputed the reported reduc-
HIGH 94 LOW 52
TODAY’S FORECAST
tion in the number of people served and asked that it be corrected.
“While some regional variation in the client census may exist, the statewide analysis clearly indicates substantially higher client counts,” Secretary Sidonie Squier wrote.
Gov. Susana Martinez’s administration last year cut off Medicaid funding to 15 nonprofits and replaced 12 of them with new providers.
• DANIEL RAY BARROW • NANCY POSZ • ALMA CHRISTINE MUSICK
Above: Mark Wilson Photo
NMMI cadets read literature at the New Mexico Youth ChalleNGe Academy booth during the Out of This World Job Fair 2014 at the Roswell Convention Center, Wednesday.
Right: Jill McLaughlin Photo
Antonio Nunez, left, program specialist for disabled veterans outreach with New Mexico Workforce Connection, speaks to an attendee at the job fair. The event was well attended. Terri Finch, of Progressive Residential Services of New Mexico, said she received many applications from great applicants, including accountants and managers. “It’s a nice turnout.”
• MARGARET RICHARDS HEATON
TODAY’S OBITUARIES PAGE A6
CLASSIFIEDS ..........B5 COMICS .................B4 ENTERTAINMENT .....A8 FINANCIAL ..............B3
INDEX GENERAL ...............A2
HOROSCOPES .........A8 LOTTERIES .............A2
OPINION .................A4
SPORTS .................B1
WEATHER ..............A8