A standalone Starbucks slated to go up in a quaint New Mexico resort town that opposes big chains burned down to the ground — the second time the site was hit by a suspicious fire, local officials said.
Firefighters in Taos, the state’s popular art and skiing destination, responded to the blaze just after midnight on Monday.
Eddie Joe Abeyta, the fire chief in Taos, told Taos News that the construction site was “fully engulfed” by flames.
“It collapsed into the center,” Abeyta told Taos News.
The devastating blaze caused more damage than an Aug. 30 fire that partially destroyed the north-facing wall of the building, according to Taos News.
Graffiti denouncing Starbucks was reportedly found at the site — located on an abandoned lot at the corner of Paseo del Pueblo Sur and Herdner Road — in the aftermath of the first fire, according to local reports.
The latest fire has drawn the attention of the New Mexico State Fire Marshal’s Office as well as the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.
Abeyta told The Post that the ATF’s involvement was sought due to the federal agency’s ability to deploy more sophisticated means of investigation, including a trained dog capable of sniffing out possible use of accelerant to intensify the spread of the fire.
Starbucks operates two locations in Taos — one inside an Albertsons supermarket and another in a Smiths grocery store.
However, local business owners fear that allowing national chains such as Starbucks and Walmart to expand their presence in Taos will hurt their bottom line.
In March, a coalition of small business owners, grocery workers, and environmental lawyers mounted a campaign opposing plans to build a Walmart “supercenter” in Taos.
Last month, Walmart was forced to close one of its retail locations in Clovis, about 250 miles away from Taos, after a fire caused extensive damage, according to local reports.
The fire, which authorities suspect was due to arson, forced state investigators to divert their resources to Clovis while they were probing the Aug. 30 blaze at the Starbucks site in Taos.
The latest fire has ignited a fierce debate on social media.
“I guess we don’t want to see other business, even small ones, come into the s–t ton of empty spaces along Paseo?” wrote one Reddit user who authored a post titled “Again, burning down the Starbucks.”
An anti-Starbucks Reddit user alleged that the site was burned “because the people building it weren’t paying their contractors.”
The Post has sought comment from Starbucks as well as from Hart Construction, the Albuquerque-based company that was hired by the building’s owner.
The owner, an Arizona-based company called OTB-Taos, was not immediately available for comment.
This story originally appeared on NYPost
