Manuel Bowser’s 7,000-seat bullring sits empty and silent amid the giant warehouses and maquiladora factories of eastern Tijuana. Since May, there have been no bullfights here – nor anywhere else in Tijuana, a city whose bullfights once enticed thousands of Californian across the border.
Federal courts in Tijuana ordered a temporary suspension of bullfighting in the city last summer in response to petitions from the animal rights groups Abogados Animalistas Mexico and Rescue Me Tijuana. The groups want bullfighting banned, arguing that the activity violates residents’ constitutional right to a healthy environment. Now supporters of the tradition – and those determined to end it – are awaiting the court’s final ruling.
The ban came days before Bowser had scheduled a bullfight on July 2, the second bullfight at Nuevo Toreo Tijuana of the 2023 season. He is still reeling from the economic loss caused by the last-minute cancellation.
Bullfighting has been practiced in Mexico since Spanish conquistadors introduced it in the 16th century. In recent years opponents increasingly have been pushing to ban the tradition,which usually ends with the animal dying. Today, bullfighting is banned in five Mexican states. And polls show that a majority of Mexicans favor bans.
The debate has been in the national spotlight in recent weeks as opponents and supporters of bullfighting engage in legal battles. Earlier this month, animal rights activists scored a victory when a federal judge ordered the indefinite suspension of bullfights in Guadalajara. But the next day, Mexico’s Supreme Court lifted a ban on bullfighting in Mexico City, opening the way for its return to the 41,000-seat Plaza de Toros, known as the largest bullring in the world.
In Tijuana, the questions over bullfighting’s future hang in the air, as the city has become one of the main legal battle grounds.
“Who are they to take away what I like?” Bowser, a lifelong bullfighting aficionado, asked as he walked me through his walled compound that encloses the bullring and a horse stable. “Maybe they like dogs and maybe I don’t. I respect them. Let them respect me too.”
Bullfight supporters defend it as a cultural tradition. They cite individual liberties and economic benefits of bullfighting. “I always liked it, since I was a little boy,” Bowser said. “My father instilled it in me, la fiesta brava, the toro.”
Carmen Villareal Alberich also attended Tijuana bullfights with her father, but she found herself averting her eyes. Today she uses her legal degree to end the practice as a volunteer with Abogados Animalistas Mexico. “It’s incongruent that on the one hand we’re seeking to build a peaceful society and on weekends we celebrate the death of animals.”
Activists say bullfighting is tantamount to animal torture. To make their legal argument, they look to Article 4 of Mexico’s Constitution, which states that Mexicans have a right to a healthy environment.
‘It Was the Place to Be’
Bullfighting was once a top form of entertainment in Tijuana, reaching its height of popularity from the 1960s to the 1990s. Fans from both sides of the border flocked to the two main bullrings, El Toreo de Tijuana near downtown and Plaza Monumental, or Bullring by the Sea in Playas de Tijuana.
“It was the place to be,” said Mario Fajardo, head of Tijuana’s municipal bullfighting commission. “You had to go to say hello to everyone. And even if you didn’t know much about bullfighting, there was a lot of ambiance, a big fiesta.”
Today, the downtown bullring has been torn down for condominiums. Plaza Monumental, with its seating capacity of 22,000, continues to present concerts but has not held a bullfight since 2022. A third smaller bullring, the 3,000-seat Plaza de Toros Caliente, was dismantled four years ago.
Bowser’s bullring, off Alamar Boulevard, has been the only active bullring in Tijuana this year, opening its season on May 7 with more than 2,500 fans attending. When I visited his bullring last week, Bowser told me that when the July bullfight was suspended, he had already sold 1,700 tickets, and was expecting to sell many more.
He calculates his loss at close to 1.8 million Mexican pesos – more than $100,000.
“I had the livestock here, the bullfighters, the transportation paid from far away,” he said. “Everything was lost.”
As Bowser showed me around, we walked into the chapel, where bullfighters pray before entering the ring. And we peeked into a small stable, where two specially-bred bulls, known as toros de lidia, have been staying, their fate uncertain.
The fight is not over. Animal rights advocates are hoping the court’s ban becomes permanent when a final decision is reached in the coming weeks or months. But Tijuana’s passionate community of taurinos is determined to reverse it. Both sides are committed to filing legal appeals in case they lose the ruling.
In Other News
PedWest closes: Merchants in San Ysidro who depend heavily on foot traffic from Tijuana are suffering a sharp drop in sales with the temporary closure on Dec. 9 of PedWest, the western pedestrian entrance of the San Ysidro Port of Entry. “This is a punch in the gut at the worst possible time,” Jason Wells, CEO of the San Ysidro Chamber of Commerce, told KPBS-News. U.S. Customs and Border Protection say they need the officers redirected to assist U.S. Border Patrol agents in processing the large numbers of migrants coming across the border. Pedwest’s closure comes just a month after its reopening on Nov. 16. It had been closed for two months, also due to the large numbers of migrants that needed processing.
In the meantime, the wait times on the eastern pedestrian entry have been spiking, with crossers reporting waits of four to five hours.
On Dec. 12, Mexico’s federal government released a statement calling upon the U.S. government to “immediately resume operations” at Pedwest and two other shuttered crossings on the Texas and Arizona borders, “to avoid significant economic losses on both sides of the border.”
Mexico steps up enforcement: Rising numbers of migrant crossings have prompted Mexico to take steps deterring their passage to the United States.
New Border Patrol station: The construction of a new Border Patrol station in eastern San Diego County is bringing changes to the small community of Dulzura.
Panga drivers sentenced: Two Baja California men each received sentences of more than four years from a San Diego federal judge for their role in a coastal smuggling attempt that claimed three lives in November 2022 off of Imperial Beach.
CBP officer resigns: A Customs and Border Protection officer admitted to using unreasonable force and resigned after grabbing a woman from her vehicle at the secondary inspection area of the San Ysidro Port of Entry, splitting her lip and breaking her nose. The April 2022 incident was outlined in the former officer’s guilty plea filed Tuesday in San Diego federal court. He faces up to a year in prison and a fine of $100,000. Sentencing is scheduled for March 8.
Drug theft leads to violence: At least two Tijuana law enforcement officers–one municipal, the other with the state–were shot dead following the theft of a large shipment of cocaine from a warehouse. Hours after the Nov. 18 theft, gunmen sprayed the federal prosecutors office in Tijuana with gunfire.
Tijuana mayor’s race: Billboards around the city are announcing Mayor Montserrat Caballero’s intention of running for a second three-year term in Mexico’s June 2024 elections. Caballero, a member of President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador’s MORENA Party, faces competition for her party’s nomination from Erik “El Terrible” Morales, a former professional boxer who served three years in Mexico’s chamber of deputies.
Baja California travel: A recent CNN Travel segment named Baja California as a desirable tourist destination. It highlighted restaurants, bars and breweries in Mexicali, Ensenada and Tijuana, and activities such as sandboarding in desert dunes outside Mexicali, rock climbing in the Sierra San Pedro Martir, and kayaking in the Gulf of California.
Are there topics you’d like to hear about in the Border Report? I’d love to hear from you. Contact me at sandradibblenews@gmail.com
When did TJ become the home of the woke? Next you know they will be banning those zerbra’s from Revolucion Ave!
While there are legitimate online data entry jobs, it’s important to be cautious as there are also many scams in this field. n Here are some tips and places where you can find online data entry jobs.
Here……. https://ImpotantOnlinedata.blogspot.com
No update on the sewage flowing from Tijuana? Perhaps after this week’s rains there will be news.