Chief, to bar owner to business collaborator: An interview with Pete Kassetas

BY RYAN BOETEL

JOURNAL BUSINESS EDITOR

He was the chief of one of the largest police agencies in the state.

He retired and opened a bar.

Then he organized nearby business owners to create a consortium of Old Town business leaders and residents to help businesses fight crime.

Pete Kassetas was the guest on this week’s edition of the Business Outlook podcast, which focused on leadership.

Kassetas had a 26-year career with New Mexico State Police before retiring at the beginning of 2019. During his time with the agency, Kassetas worked in patrol and criminal investigations. He then started Outpost 1706 in Old Town.

Business Outlook podcasts are released on Mondays and are available on YouTube, Spotify, iTunes and Apple Podcasts.

Here’s a preview of the conversation, which has been edited for clarity.

Tell us about your career in law enforcement and how that dovetailed into being a bar owner?

“It’s great to talk about what I’ve done and the beautiful, amazing community I’ve discovered in Old Town. I started my law enforcement career in 1992 when I graduated from the New Mexico State Police Academy. I always knew I always knew I was going to be a police officer. I got the bug from my uncle, who’s a Tucson (police department) officer. He took me on a ride along when I was 16.

I ended up staying in state and getting a degree, and then went to the State Police Academy and graduated and started my career. And I worked through the ranks, patrol, investigations, narcotics through my 20-some years, and ended up being appointed chief in 2013 and that lasted five and a half years.”

So you find yourself in a position of a lot of law enforcement officers do: You retire from being a police officer and aren’t really at retirement age and have to find another interest.

“I tell people my life is like a country song. I had gone through a career change — retirement, divorce. And I’m trying to figure out what I wanted to do. Because I’m still relatively young at that age. I’d always been an entrepreneur. I had a car wash in the east Central-Heights area for 24 years that I recently sold. After a year and a half of hanging out and mountain biking, I got the opportunity when the owners of Plaza Don Luis approached me — one was my former nephew — and they said ‘Why don’t you come out of retirement to manage the acquisition, remodel and get this place full of tenants?’ I said, ‘What do I know about property management?’ And they laughed and said, ‘You’re the state police chief; I’m sure you could figure it out.’

The Outpost started when me and my business owner looked and the space and knew it was beautiful. We knew it was special. So we decided to take a leap and open a brewery/tap room.”

You helped start the Old Town Merchants Association. What is the goal of that?

“When I was the chief, I would go to a lot of different communities. I was in the system for 26 years, and now I’m outside looking in, and I’m not going to sugarcoat it, I can make phone

See PODCAST>>19

From PAGE 15

calls and get things done. But how do I do that not just for myself, but for the betterment of whatever community I’m in?

And I remember talking to folks when I was early on as chief. I went into a community called Meadow Lake, and there was a huge crime problem out there, and heard a lot from the community, and I thought to myself, ‘Okay, I’m the chief. What can I do to help with the quality of life issues here? What can I what resources do I have?’ I realized very quickly, I can’t solve all of your problems. I wasn’t that kind of chief that stood up and said I could, and I’m not that type of business owner. So what I did was, I noticed that there was a lot of breaking and entering, a lot of vandalism in Old Town, especially when they closed everything at 6 (p.m.). Like any good cop, you get to know the street folks. And I would talk to them, and I’d ask them, ‘Why are you here? Why are you smoking fentanyl?’

I’ve been in (Albuquerque Police) Chief Harold Medina’s shoes. I didn’t want to be the ex-police chief who calls up and says, ‘Hey chief, throw me a bone. Let’s get some resources down here.’ I needed a plan. First, there was a lot of criticism at that level, as far business owners, residents, property owners: ‘Everything is APD’s fault.’ That’s not true. It’s an amazing agency. It’s a wonderful agency, but they’re limited. And I had to explain to a lot of the folks out there, go into their businesses and tell them, ‘Hey, maybe we’re part of the problem here in Old Town.’ We don’t hurt anybody’s feelings, but at some point I have to stress to them, ‘Hey, you have to learn how to do what’s called target hardening. How do we tell the bad guys, ‘Don’t come here, go somewhere else. We don’t want you here.’ And that was an uphill battle.

There’s a lot of pushback. I started to go vocal with what I wanted from the city, because I knew what to ask for. We just can’t say we want APD here all the time. That’s just not going to happen. So I started to take it to the city in the media. And a lot of folks didn’t like that because it put a bad light on Old Town, and it’s almost saying, ‘Don’t come here, because they have problems.’ But the first step was talking to the different various business owners and asking them what their challenges were, and then starting to educate them on how they could protect their businesses without waiting for someone to do it for them.

And the biggest catalyst was communication, networking.

You know, the criminals we have in Albuquerque communicate. If they find a soft target or somewhere where they can exploit, they talk and they share information, and we were sharing no information. I would find out that a place was broken into and how they did it, and get a picture two weeks after it was done only to find out that that happened to two other places in the plaza. So I put together a WhatsApp group. And that was an interesting jump, right? I had to make sure it didn’t turn into a Facebook conversation group. I was very pointed on what I wanted on there. And it was basically, ‘If you get victimized, if there is a burglary, robbery, you’re having a specific problem with homelessness, you need to be very factual and list it on this WhatsApp.’ And it grew from maybe 20 people close to 200 now.

And it is everyone from community members, politicians, store owners, property owners, some media — everybody, anybody can join it.

It brought us together in the Old Town community, which then brought us to how and why the Merchants Association was reformed, which was great because then that gave us more of a formal venue, a route to be able to talk to City Council and the Mayor’s Office, instead of just all these different business owners throwing stuff at the wall to see what would stick. And that led us to where we’re at now, a few press conferences here and there, a few phone calls made, and we’ve turned the corner in the last six months. We took it upon ourselves, because we, as business owners, decided to actually finance our own security.”

You’re kind of putting your money where your mouth is.

“It sent the message to APD and the Mayor’s Office that we’re in this fight, too. We’re going to do some things. We’re going to get you better evidence. We’re going to get you video. We’re going to get you still photos. I’ve taught people how to take note of their surroundings, to be able to provide better descriptions of folks or situations that are going to help APD. We’ve taken an active role in it. And to the mayor’s credit and Chief Medina’s credit, they’ve rolled up their sleeves and pitched in. It wasn’t a love fest. I know I ruffled some feathers, but I did it within reason, because it’s been done to me time and time again as the state police chief. I get it.”