Trinity Hotel and Restaurant racks up $100,000 in fines for defying governor's health order

“We can no longer continue to rack up those fines at that rate,” said Trinity Hotel and Restaurant co-owner, Janie Balzano. “We will contact whoever they decide that we need to contact and we’ll do our best to make arrangements to pay this egregious amount, but we can’t continue to rack up that kind of debt.”

The owners took to their Facebook page to announce the news Wednesday.

The New Mexico Supreme court ruled in favor of Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham’s administration to fine non-compliant businesses $5,000 per day Tuesday.

Balzano believes they had no other choice.

“I believe everybody in the restaurant association has written a letter. Then, we have the ‘Let Us Serve’ campaign which I believe is almost 20,000 letters to her and this has gotten nowhere,” she said. “Unfortunately, we can’t get a seat at the table to talk to this woman about what she is about to do—about the taxes that she is about to lose out on. Last year our business paid $265,000 in gross receipts; This year, she will not get that. If she closes the Trinity, she will never see that again.”

“We don’t have any place to put a tent per se. We cannot attach it to our building. Our building was built in the 1880s,” Balzano said. “We have no outdoor power. To see what it cost first, we would have to ask for a permit, put in more power and that is a long and lengthy fee and about $60,000 to put in electricity to have some sort of lighting and some sort of air conditioning.”

While The Trinity remains closed for now, Balzano said she and her staff are doing what they can to stay afloat.

“We’re going to do to-go orders until otherwise told not to, and we are expanding our dining out in the Balzano vineyards,” she said. “We have a small patio out there, and a very small kitchen out there and we will move as many of our employees from The Trinity to there to help us stay employed.”

A separate lawsuit filed against the state by the New Mexico Restaurant Association still stands.

“While yesterday’s decision was disappointing for all businesses, not just restaurants. It was not our lawsuit,” Balzano said. “The New Mexico Restaurant suit is data driven and based on the bias toward our industry. It’s in the most capable and confident hands of the Roybal-Mack law firm and we are looking forward to that –to our day in court with this case.