By Jesse Jones, City Desk in The Paper. — Drivers and pedestrians are navigating dark stretches of East Central Avenue after copper thieves have ripped wiring from streetlights, prompting a pair of city councilors to tighten Albuquerque’s scrap metal recycling laws in an effort to curb the vandalism.
Rather than creating a new law, Councilors Renée Grout and Tammy Fiebelkorn proposed O-26-32 to expand the city’s 2023 catalytic converter ordinance to include copper and brass materials. The proposal would ban instant cash payouts by requiring check-only payments, force scrap yards to hold the metals for 15 days and require dealers to send transaction data to the Albuquerque Police Department by noon the next business day. Dealers would also have to keep seller, vehicle and VIN records for three years on catalytic converter sales and one year for copper and brass transactions as the city responds to rising thefts targeting construction sites, vehicles and public infrastructure.
Photo by Roberto E. Rosales/City Desk Abq.
Legitimate recycling remains perfectly acceptable, Grout told City Desk, but the surge in copper resale prices has encouraged wire theft. “Vandalism due to copper theft is a menace to public safety, and it costs taxpayers and property owners hundreds of thousands of dollars to repair the damage every year,” she said.
While New Mexico already has criminal penalties for metal theft, Grout said it already has stronger criminal penalties for metal theft under the state’s Chop Shop law and the Sale of Recycled Metals Act. She said the state still lacks a centralized system to track scrap metal transactions. “This is where state law gets its teeth – at the local level,” she said, adding the ordinance “is a marriage of City Ordinance and state law” by requiring local reporting that APD can use to investigate property crimes. “We’re not trying to punish the businesses that buy metal, but we’re going to create extra steps for people to sell it,” Grout said.
The ordinance has been referred to the Finance and Government Operations Committee and is expected to be discussed at the June 8 meeting.