Meow Wolf deserves its own liquor license
With regard to Meow Wolf ’s request for a liquor license being tabled by the City Council (“Meow Wolf liquor license plans delayed,” Oct. 26), what I’d like the people of Santa Fe to know is that, as an employee for close to a year, I have seen nothing in the internal culture of Meow Wolf to suggest that the people who run the attraction — from the staff members who clean the bathrooms and exhibits, to every member of the visitor services staff, to the tech and maintenance crew, to the gift shop and events staff, to the upper management and beyond — would treat their role as liquor license stewards with anything less than utmost responsibility.
Never before have I worked in a culture where the people surrounding me take their roles and responsibilities for the safety and well-being of our customers with such seriousness and dedication.
While the exhibit is about fun and surprise and mystery and pleasure, the people behind the scenes at Meow Wolf work hard and with careful intention every day to ensure that our customers are taken care of with respect and sensitivity; that the exhibit is clean and well-maintained for everyone’s health and enjoyment; and that the place, in general, is run with integrity.
Many of my colleagues are millennials (and even younger). I was born in the 1960s, not the ’80s, and have worked in a lot of different contexts — here in New Mexico, in New York City and in Montreal, where I was born. As someone who is out-and-about in the community quite a bit, I hear rumors from people outside of Meow Wolf about what goes on inside Meow Wolf. I can say without equivocation that those rumors do not match in the least what I have seen and experienced myself.
What Meow Wolf is trying to do with a liquor license is continue to grow its business, a business that already and without question has given the city of Santa Fe — and the whole state of New Mexico, in fact — a major economic shot in the arm.
Why would Santa Feans want to stymie this growing business from continuing to grow? Why would we want to curtail Meow Wolf ’s ability to employ more people and bring more business to our city?
Meow Wolf has had a bar inside its lobby since it opened in 2016, with beer and wine provided and licensed by New Mexico brewery Duel. That bar has been operating consistently and pretty much without incident. No one within Meow Wolf wants to see people getting drunk and overserved. All we want to do is to offer more value and greater service to our customers.
Bars are located in other family destinations such as amusement parks, restaurants and sports arenas. Why not at Meow Wolf ? I haven’t yet heard a cogent, well-reasoned argument from those who are against the prospect of Meow Wolf running its own bar that would persuade me that it’s a bad idea. If it’s OK and has been OK for another business to operate a bar within Meow Wolf, why isn’t it OK for Meow Wolf to run its own bar?
Bonnie Schwartz is a resident of Santa Fe County and an employee on the administrative staff of Meow Wolf.