Mexico's Drug War Hits Historic Border Cantinas

NPR ^ | August 16, 2010 | John Burnett

[SwinneySwitch]

Mexico's drug cartel war has killed more than 28,000 people in four years, but some of the collateral damage has not been as noticeable. A trio of famous, Prohibition-era cantinas in Mexican border cities, having survived more than 80 turbulent years, are in deep trouble.

On a recent weekday, a headline in Mexico's El Diario newspaper screams: "Juarez is the Center of the Country's Narco-War." That can't be good for business at the Kentucky Club, a venerable saloon that's been here since 1920, three blocks from the international bridge that connects Ciudad Juarez and El Paso, Texas.

"Actually, in these times, the wave of violence here in Juarez is tremendous," says Raul Martinez, who has been the doorman at the Kentucky Club for 25 years. "Before, we had to turn people away, we were so full — $10 or $20 wouldn't get you in. Now, I wish we had customers."

Organized Crime

Outside the tavern, federal police with ski masks and assault rifles patrol the streets of Juarez, a city of more than 1 million people. Inside, the white-jacketed, one-eyed bartender walks over to the jukebox and punches in a Sinatra tune for two tables of customers who are sipping the bar's potent margaritas.

It's estimated that one-fourth of the people of Juarez have fled the city, which has been overrun by organized crime and logs a murder every three hours, on average. The Kentucky Club estimates it has lost more than 75 percent of its clientele.

The nightclub boasted visits by Marilyn Monroe, John Wayne and then-actor Ronald Reagan, among others. Those glamorous days are long gone. Like many businesses in drug-war-torn Juarez, Raul the doorman says the Kentucky Club has to pay a cuota, or extortion, to local thugs just to keep the doors open.

[SwinneySwitch]

"A sign taped to the door of the famed Cadillac Bar, which opened in Nuevo Laredo in 1926, says it is "temporarily closed" as of Aug. 1."

[A CA Guy]

Kind of similar when Obama was in Los Angeles yesterday causing tens of millions in costs and lost revenue to local businesses.

[FlingWingFlyer]

[Jane Long]

Ah, The Kentucky Club. Supposedly where the famous margarita was invented, decades ago, by a milkman turned bartender. That and a sandwich from Fred's Club are now stardust memories.

Sad to see all the violence taking away the simple lives of the every day citizens.

[milagro]

AMEN!

[Max_850]

28,000 dead in four years. That is about equivalent with the casualty rate of the Vietnam War...

Must be a pretty horrific life for those living in the border cities.

I hate to sound cold, but I hope it stays on that side. However, the longer the MSM stays quiet on the subject the worse it is likely to get and more likely to spill over.