After 16 long days, Dyna Padilla breathed a huge, albeit tentative, sigh of relief.
Padilla is the owner of The Water Store in Española. City inspectors had to close Padilla’s business May 13 after they found numerous code violations at her new location, which is immediately behind the storefront facing North Riverside Drive out of which she operated for 13 years.
Her new building is much smaller than what she’s used to. She no longer sells fudge, ice cream or custom sodas. Her new building is also rife with problems that need to be fixed by June 13 in order for her to stay open; otherwise, the city or the state Environment Department could shut her down again. Padilla moved to the smaller building because business had slowed down and so had she.
City inspectors Joe Duran and Larry Valdez noticed workers cleaning up the outside of the former storefront and stopped by to ask who would be moving in to the space, Duran said. They met with landlord Gilbert Sanchez and learned that Padilla had moved her business to a building in the back that had previously only been used for storage.
“A warehouse doesn’t have any of the life-safety requirements that a business does,” Duran said, explaining why The Water Store had to be closed. “Dyna moved back there without telling anybody.”
Duran said some of the violations were more egregious than others and that it’s the city’s policy to let a business get the more important violations out of the way so it can reopen. After that, the business has up to 30 days from the date of the citation to remedy the rest of the violations.
“We’re not here to close them,” Duran said, “but if there is a problem, we will close them.”
Not all businesses are going to be subject to current city building code. That’s something that bothers Padilla.
“I’ve been to other stores and thought, ‘How come they don’t see this problem?’” Padilla said. “If I’m going to comply, I want everyone to comply. Not just me.”
The city can’t make a business comply with new codes unless that business is doing renovations or moving to a new location, as Padilla did. Duran said some businesses that have been operating in Española for decades get to follow older code rules because they’re grandfathered in.
“If they’re going to renovate a window, then that window has to come into compliance,” Duran said. “If they’re not doing any renovations, I can’t make them come up to code.”
Meanwhile, the Environment Department has stopped Padilla from selling ice.
“I’ve been making ice for 13 years at the store and now they say I need a permit,” Padilla said. “They’re nitpicking so much.”
Padilla’s frustration is palpable. She said being closed for over two weeks has left her scraping by to pay bills that she normally was able to pay on time. She can’t remember the last time she took a vacation and has closed before for “maybe two days because I was really sick.”
Despite all the trouble, Padilla said, the most important thing is that she’s back open.
“It was very, very hard,” she said, “but I’ve always wanted to stay open because my customers want my water.”