OPINION: Kooky bookstore owner has become a public nuisance

The case of the quirky bookstore with the kooky owner has gone on long enough. It's time for the courts to finally act before someone else is seriously hurt. 

Gillam Kerley, owner of Quirky Used Books & More in Albuquerque, insists he’s been helping the homeless at his property at 120 Jefferson NE, just north of Central, since July 2024 when he began allowing 18 people with 12 tents to stay in the store’s parking lot.

The city, whose Code Enforcement Department has been in an ongoing battle with the bookstore since then for alleged zoning code violations, says Kerley is enabling drug use in an illegal encampment and that "the situation is becoming increasingly dangerous."

“Despite repeated notices, hearings and fines, the property owners have continued to allow individuals to camp at the location, creating escalating harm to adjacent businesses, residents and the broader community,” stated a city news release in November.

Some of his neighbors say Kerley is single-handedly destroying the Nob Hill neighborhood. 

Kerley's enterprise made the news again in late December when a large fire erupted in his bookstore's parking lot. The fire burned the worldly possessions of at least five campers. Fortunately, no one was injured.

No one apparently knows what sparked the “huge wall of flame” that burned up to overhead telephone wires and threatened neighboring buildings, but I'm thinking it wasn't a lightning strike. The bookstore has been drawing complaints of people setting fires, publicly urinating and defecating on properties, and vandalizing storefronts for a year and a half.

A spokesperson for Albuquerque Fire Rescue said investigators couldn't determine the cause or whether the fire was intentional or accidental because the scene was quickly "compromised" by people returning to the unsanctioned homeless encampment.

One of the 15 or so former residents used a butter knife to dig through the blackened debris searching for anything that might have survived. He managed to collect a handful of ash-covered pennies. There's a metaphor in there somewhere.

Kerley quickly reopened the camp after volunteers scraped burnt plastic from the asphalt the day after the fire. Now, people are again living in tents in his frigid parking lot — lacking heating, plumbing, portable toilets, security or even trash cans.

“If you really want to help people, this isn’t helping them,” said Edward Fitzgerald, a neighbor with an office directly across the street from the bookstore.

Is allowing people to sleep in tents in your store's parking lot a humanitarian act, or more a political statement by the quirky bookstore owner?

Alfredo Barrenechea, who owns Absolute Investment Realty, which shares a property line and sheet metal fence with Kerley's store, doesn't see him as a humanitarian.

“He ruined this entire neighborhood, single-handedly,” Barrenechea said.

Jude Brunner, a manager at the Firestone Complete Auto Care store just around the corner from the bookstore, says customers are reluctant to leave their vehicles overnight with homeless people milling about.

The Dec. 22 fire wasn't the first time first responders have been summoned to Kerley's bookstore. Twenty-eight-year-old Gregory Antone was fatally shot outside the store around 1 a.m. on Nov. 15. A suspect has not yet been arrested.

According to the city, Antone got into an argument with people at the encampment. But Quirky Books said in a social media post: "None of the unhoused neighbors whom we allow to camp at the back of our parking lot were involved in this incident."

How could they know that? Does Kerley keep a record of check-ins? Does he have any idea what's going on on his property at 1 a.m.? The neighbors and police seem to know. As of mid-November, the Albuquerque Police Department had responded to 235 calls for services within a year's time in the area of the bookstore. 

Kerley has the mendacity to blame the city for the hypodermic needles and bottles of urine Barrenechea's employees regularly find thrown over the fence line and the human excrement on and around his bookstore property. 

"It is important to help people in need until the city takes responsibility of the issue and addresses it," he told KOAT-TV after the December fire.

Kerley says the city isn't adequately tending to the homeless population and they're just doing what homeless people do.

“These issues exist wherever there are unhoused people,” he told the Journal in November, blaming local leaders for housing and affordability issues.

Kerley further claims in court filings his unsanctioned tent encampment is constitutionally protected because "everyone a right to seek and attain safety and a right to acquire and protect their possessions."

It's a ludicrous assertion. Using that logic, we all could use our parking lots as open-air  Airbnbs and storage yards.

The city on Nov. 5 filed a civil lawsuit asking a district court judge to declare the bookstore a public nuisance because of health concerns and alleged drug use, which would allow city code enforcement to enter the private property and evict those camping there.

In response to the December fire, City Attorney Lauren Keefe said the city would file another motion demanding the encampment be closed immediately, noting there are beds available for the homeless in the Gateway System.

But the year ended with no action from the court.

Kerley isn't just a public nuisance, he's the neighbor from hell. The most frustrating part of his political activism guised as humanitarianism is that he's been able to get away with it for so long.  

If Kerley wants to allow an encampment on his property, he needs to go through the legal process and apply for a Safe Outdoor Space permit, which allows businesses, nonprofits and churches to maintain encampments if they meet minimum conditions, such as providing 24-hour security, access to showers and restrooms, and social services like job training.

Kerley doesn't do any of that. But he says he allows the homeless to use a restroom in his bookstore when it's open and he also provides them water.

Wow, what a humanitarian!

And where is the New Mexico Department of Health in this whole saga? If DOH can shut down businesses and schools for more than a year due to a novel virus, why are we waiting on the courts to shut down a rogue homeless encampment that's gotten out of control and clearly poses a public nuisance?

If the courts don't act, and soon, the governor needs to step in and demonstrate the resolve the city has apparently been lacking to finally clean up the illegal encampment before the neighborhood is further eroded and someone else gets hurt. 

Jeff Tucker is a Journal columnist and the former Opinion editor. He is also a member of the Journal Editorial Board.