Trouble for business owners in the border town of San Ysidro, CA.
Jason Wells, executive director of the San Ysidro Chamber of Commerce (left) directing the Improvement Corporation Monthly Board of Directors Meeting.
[Editor’s note: Dan Grossman, the writer of this piece, is living in San Diego until August 20, which gave him an opportunity to visit San Ysidro. For a previous article he wrote on art in Tijuana, click here. ]
The immediate concerns of the business owners in attendance at the San Ysidro Improvement Corporation Monthly Board of Directors Meeting, on July 27, were theft and the lack of customers.
But everyone at the meeting knew that these were just symptoms of a much larger problem.
The meeting took place in the patio of Maya’s Gourmet Pizza, approximately 1,000 feet from what is normally the western hemisphere’s busiest land border crossing in San Ysidro, CA, a district of the city of San Diego. Beyond the border: the sprawling city of Tijuana, Mexico.
On July 21, these business owners learned that the COVID-related closure of the border to non-essential travel, which has been in effect since March, 2020, would be extended by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security through at least August 21.
According to the San Ysidro Chamber of Commerce’s executive director Jason Wells, the escalating problems of theft and lack of sales — along with homelessness, graffiti, and all kinds of crime — are directly related to this closure.
“When you don't have an active business community, it's a recipe for all the bad things to come out there right in the community,” he said.
Since March 2020, when the border restrictions went into effect, 197 businesses in San Ysidro have closed. The Chamber of Commerce estimates that there has been a corresponding loss of $644 million in sales and roughly 1,900 jobs between March 2020 and March 2021.
From left to right: a view into Tijuana, Mexico from San Ysidro, CA.; Community Relations Officer Carlos Lacarra explains a point at the chamber of commerce meeting; Olivia Campos in front of her store; Carolin Shoes.
The San Ysidro port of entry normally has two crossing points open, but the newest one, Ped West, has been closed since April, 2020 due to reduced traffic due to the COVID-related restrictions. The Ped West port of entry onto U.S. soil is adjacent to Plaza Palmera, a large shopping mall where approximately one-third of business storefronts are currently unoccupied and where business is slow.
Maya’s Gourmet Pizza sits a quarter-mile or so east of the mall, on San Ysidro Boulevard, where the older border crossing continues to function. But the normal flow of Mexican shoppers into the boulevard from across the border has been severely reduced because crossing the border in order to go shopping is not considered “essential travel.”
“On the boulevard side 95% of the clientele comes from across the border, and a large percentage of them are pedestrians with tourist visas, precisely the people that aren't allowed to cross,” Wells said. “But on the other side, because you do have some more traffic from downtown — northern San Diego — than we have here … it’s still 65% border crossers.”
During the non-agenda public comment period of the board of directors meeting, business owners spoke about the various difficulties they have been facing.
Olivia Campos talked about the theft problem in her store. She blamed it, at least in part, on the unintended consequences of California’s Proposition #47 which makes theft of less than $950 a misdemeanor rather than a felony. Consequently shoplifters have little to fear when walk into stores and fill up bags with stolen items because there is rarely any consequence for their actions.
Campos owns Carolin Shoes, a shoe and clothing store.
“It’s like San Francisco,” she said. “They are closing the store doors at five o'clock because they cannot handle no more. That means they are reducing a lot of hours, a lot of hours is a lot less jobs. They're not going to survive long like that.”
Campos has had to reduce staff to the point that she is relying on her daughter and husband to fill hours and they are relying on savings to get through.
In order to discourage theft, she has blocked off certain areas of the store and chained push carts to the wall but just as immediate and urgent problem is the lack of customers.
“Without customers we cannot pay employees when everything's a little bit desperate to open the border,” she said.
Another issue that came up in the public comment period was the ability — and advisability — of business owners to confront shoplifters.
Community Relations Officer Carlos Lacarra, from the San Diego Police Department, advised against such confrontation.
“It’s just not worth it,” he said, “because honestly, depending on what it is, it's a $5 shirt or something like that. You do what you need to. do, but I would not recommend that. It's not worth it. A lot of these people have weapons on them.”
Lacarra emphasized that, when it comes to helping business owners, the San Diego Police Department is limited by the letter of the law, and he encouraged those in attendance to contact their local elected officials to attempt to change the laws and border restrictions.
Jason Wells, in response, emphasized that the Chamber of Commerce has been trying to make elected officials area through their active letter writing campaign and telling the press about how San Ysidro businesses are suffering.
Another item mentioned during the meeting was the 3-5 hour wait times at the border for travelers wishing to enter the United States at peak hours, which makes it difficult for those living in Mexico and working in the U.S.
Wells also mentioned that the vaccination rates in Baja California compared favorably to those in San Diego.
“The secretary of health of Baja, California reported several weeks ago, they had reached the 70th percentile,” Wells said. “I think they're at 74%. as far as vaccinations, which is higher than some places in San Diego and they reached herd immunity in Baja, California.”
He also said that the reasons for continuing to restrict non-essential travel into the U.S. were not based on the latest information, which is a point of view shared with San Diego mayor Todd Gloria.
“The mayor’s been on; he’s been on CNN on all the other local shows … really pushing both the economic effects to our community, the seeming lack of any reason for there to be restrictions. And he's really been pushing, ‘Look, just tell us what measure we need to get right.’”
