A. It is unlawful for a person to:

(1) knowingly advertise, describe, label or offer for sale chile peppers as New Mexico chile, or to advertise, describe, label or offer for sale a product as containing New Mexico chile, unless the chile peppers or chile peppers in the product were grown in New Mexico; or

(2) knowingly advertise, describe, label or offer for sale chile peppers, or a product containing chile peppers, using the name of any city, town, county, village, pueblo, mountain, river or other geographic feature or features located in New Mexico in a misleading or deceptive manner that states or reasonably implies that the chile peppers are, or the product contains, New Mexico chile, unless the chile peppers or chile peppers in the product were grown in New Mexico.

B. The prohibitions in this section do not apply to a person whose business name, brand name or trademark was used in advertising, product descriptions, labels or offers for sale and was established prior to the effective date of the New Mexico Chile Advertising Act; provided that, on and after July 1, 2013, the person, in all advertising, descriptions and labels containing that business name, brand name or trademark, shall include in a prominent location and in a prominent typeface a disclaimer stating "NOT GROWN IN NEW MEXICO" if the product contains chile peppers that were not grown in New Mexico.

C. The prohibitions in this section do not apply to a restaurant that describes a menu item using a geographic name provided for in Paragraph (2) of Subsection A of this section; provided that the origin of any chile in the menu item is not misrepresented.

History: Laws 2011, ch. 57, § 3; 2013, ch. 85, § 2; 2013, ch. 211, § 2.

The 2013 amendment, effective July 1, 2013, expanded violations of the act; provided exceptions to the application of the act; and added Paragraph (2) of Subsection A and Subsections B and C.

Laws 2013, ch. 85, § 2 and Laws 2013, ch. 211, § 2, both effective July 1, 2013, enacted identical amendments to this section. The section was set out as amended by Laws 2013, ch. 211, § 2. See 12-1-8 NMSA 1978.