Steven Lemon, owner and chef of Pranzo, speaks last month about multiple instances when the restaurant had to call police due to what he described as “vagrants” on the property. Each card behind Lemon represents a different event in which police were called. According to Lemon, there have been more than 20 incidents in the last two years that have been reported to police.
Steven Lemon, owner and chef of Pranzo, speaks last month about multiple instances when the restaurant had to call police due to what he described as “vagrants” on the property. Each card behind Lemon represents a different event in which police were called. According to Lemon, there have been more than 20 incidents in the last two years that have been reported to police.
Prosecutors have dropped felony charges against a Santa Fe chef and restaurant owner who was accused last month of shooting a man with a pellet gun outside his business.
Steve Lemon had faced felony charges of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon and tampering with evidence after Santa Fe police alleged he had fired plastic pellets at a man who was digging through a dumpster one morning outside his downtown Italian restaurant, Pranzo.
Lemon said at the time he was frustrated by a series of thefts and vandalism at Pranzo — with mounting costs for the business — and a lack of action by police. His arrest created a buzz on social media, with many other business owners expressing support for him and voicing their own frustrations about rising rates of some types of crime across the city.
Lemon, 60, said Wednesday he was “grateful” the District Attorney’s Office has dismissed the criminal case against him.
But his struggles with crime at Pranzo haven’t ended.
His truck was stolen outside the restaurant during dinner service Friday evening, he said.
The truck was found somewhere in Santa Fe the following day, he said, but it was “destroyed” and “contaminated with fentanyl.”
Several days later, Lemon said, police officers paid him a visit and said the vehicle had been used in the commission of a crime.
“Two Santa Fe police officers came to my home wanting to question me because my license plate was involved in a crime, and they wanted to come and treat me like a criminal again — when they should’ve known the car was stolen,” he said.
Police wrote in an arrest warrant affidavit in late August officers were dispatched to Pranzo, at Guadalupe and Johnson streets, in response to a report of a shooting and found a man with a bloodied face. Lemon was washing an area behind the business with a hose. The affidavit alleges Lemon admitted to firing a pellet gun at the man.
However, he and his wife said in an interview in the days after the incident the man’s face was bleeding because he had scraped it on the ground — not from being shot with a pellet. They said prosecutors had told them the criminal case would be dismissed.
First Judicial District Attorney Mary Carmack-Altwies wrote in a notice of dismissal filed in court Aug. 28 the criminal complaint against Lemon “as written does not support probable cause for either charge.”
The document says the District Attorney’s Office will request “complete discovery,” or evidence, “and will evaluate for charges at a later date.”
Asked for more explanation on the decision to dismiss the case, Nathan Lederman, a spokesperson for the District Attorney’s Office, wrote in an email Wednesday that Carmack-Altwies “reviewed the facts of the case personally and did not see probable cause for the crimes as charged.” He declined to comment further.
City police records show six incidents were reported at Pranzo so far in 2024, including the alleged pellet gun shooting Aug. 22.
Lemon called police to the restaurant at least five times from February through July regarding vandalism and thefts of patio furniture and lighting. One incident resulted in misdemeanor charges against a man alleging criminal damage to property.
Police wrote in a report they had ordered “close patrols” of the restaurant during the department’s graveyard shift.
Officers describe Lemon as “very upset” and “rude” in some of the reports.
A report on an incident in May, in which Lemon said someone had pulled down the string lights on his patio, says he told officers he had cleaned human feces from the restaurant’s parking lot.
“Mr. Lemon stated he was going to take a bucket of the feces to city hall and place it on the mayor’s desk,” the report says.
