Business as Usual

PHOTO: A Walmart Supercenter, similar to the one in Chula Vista.

NOTE: Wrote this column in 2010 after a visit to the store mentioned below. Something tells me that not much has changed since then and it is still business as usual at the Walmart stores along the U.S.-Mexico border.

This one is probably the busiest Walmart store on the face of the earth. But no one has to tell you that if you’re one of its visitors. You get the first clue as you try to find a spot for your car in its huge parking lot. Once inside, you get the rest of the story. The aisles are packed with cart to cart traffic. There are lines everywhere, along with upset shoppers wanting to get to their in-store destinations, many of whom use similar tactics to those practiced by Manhattan – or Mexico City, for that matter – taxi cab drivers.

“Con permiso,” yells one hurried lady with two kids stuffed in the cart and another one pushing it. “I’m sorry, M’ija,” she says to a young girl who, like her own daughter, is trying to move forward pushing her own cart. “I’m sorry,” she says again as her daughter bumps the girl’s cart out of the way and parks in front of the deodorants aisle.

Six, maybe eight miles north of the busiest border crossing on the planet, the store is, judging by what I saw in my first and only visit, a battle zone.

Some of its customers are the locals, folks that live and shop in the proximity of Broadway and Palomar in Chula Vista, a city in San Diego’s South Bay. Most other customers, though, are from Tijuana or other south of the border cities that trek to this Walmart location and others in the area to take care of their shopping needs at a great price. Even if there aren’t any smiley faces around anymore.

In a way, it’s ironic. In post nine eleven America, crossing the border from Mexico to the U.S. at San Ysidro has become a one to three hour chore under normal conditions if you’re driving. Somewhat less if you’re walking. And you better have the right documents, too. But I’m not going to get into that. It’s sufficient to say that one reason behind the wait and scrutiny has to do with the ICE folks, the ones that fear that every visitor from Mexico is a potential terrorist.

Shopping behavior aside, the Homeland Security intelligence is way wrong about Mexican visitors from across the Tijuana River. They’re no terrorists. They’re plain folks like most penny pinching Americans looking for a good deal. And most of those great deals happen to be waiting for them north of that line we guard so much with border patrolmen and their part-time partners: National Guardsmen and nuts like the Minutemen and others like them.

“Wait, wait,” yells the Walmart greeter at the man who caused the exit security check point to beep. The man stops and so does the long line of shoppers behind him that are trying frantically to leave the store with their filled-to-the-rim carts. “Okay, go ahead,” the greeter tells the customer once he showed his ticket stating that he had paid for the merchandise.

“Stop, stop,” the greeter yells again not much later. This time the beeping was caused by a lady with electronics in her cart. The line comes to a halt one more time. The lady shows the paid invoice and the exiting line of shoppers begins to move again.

Outside the store, many shoppers divide the merchandise into separate bags and conspicuously place them in groups inside their cars. They do it to avoid paying import taxes as they drive into Mexico, I am told. If stopped by Mexican Customs, each group of merchandise is declared to belong to a different passenger in the vehicle. Whew! For cross border shoppers, it pays off to have large families.

Those that travel from the border on the Trolley – San Diego’s mass transit’s people mover – have other challenges, besides having to worry about bringing the goods into the country without paying a tax. The station is approximately two long, maybe three very long blocks away from the store. It would be nice if you could carry the purchased goods in one of the shopping carts to the station, but you can’t take them with you.

“Tú agarra las bolsas grandes,” the lady yells at her oldest son, telling him to carry the heaviest bags. The lighter ones are divided among her two daughters. As they depart and walk towards the Palomar Trolley station, the lady holds hard the hand of her youngest child and with her other arm leads her group. There are cars everywhere, coming in and leaving the parking lot. The adjacent street is even worse and there are no traffic lights to help her get across. As the bumper to bumper traffic comes to a halt because of a red light at the Broadway intersection, a block away, mother and children take advantage of the moment and weave safely among the stopped cars and get to the other side of the street.

It’s a battle zone. In and outside the store. But, for Walmart’s bean counters, stuck in a warehouse type office somewhere in Bentonville, Arkansas, it is great news. Regardless of the cries from the nutty isolationists that call for closing our border with Mexico, selling quality products at great discounted prices still works.

Especially at the border stores.