He says most of them went home but for those that didn’t, he has an idea where some could’ve ended up. He had to let go of all his female employees. “So, I’m not going to put myself at risk or my employees at risk either.” “I don’t think we’re safe to open yet,” he told us. But it’s where we met Roberto Torres, who owns the El Zorro Men’s Club, just off the district’s main drag. There’s something odd about standing in an empty strip club with the lights on. It was all done with the intent of slowing the virus’ spread.īut on a recent reporting trip to Tijuana, it was abundantly clear that while the sex industry isn’t as vibrant as it was pre-pandemic, there’s a lot of sex happening behind closed doors. The land border between the United States and Mexico was also closed to non-essential travel. That meant that all the strip clubs, bars, sex hotels and even the sex workers on the sidewalks were forced to close up shop, restrictions that remain in place today. Non-essential businesses were forced to close, including in the state of Baja California, where Tijuana is the largest city. Mexico’s government shuttered its economy in late March. Many specifically cater to the thousands of Americans who cross the border from California each month, looking for a kind of fun that can’t be found legally in the United States, except maybe in some Nevada counties where prostitution is permitted.Īll of it is legal here – or, at least, it was until the pandemic descended. Massive strip clubs, some with hotels attached, act as de facto brothels. Women in short dresses and the highest of high heels stand along the sidewalks, beckoning groups of men to spend some time and money with them. Calle Coahuila, the area’s main strip, is normally teeming with a frenetic action bathed in neon light.
Tijuana, Mexico’s famed red-light district, called Zona Norte, sits a stone’s throw from the US-Mexico border. “I don’t know if the person I’m with has the disease or not.” “I’m so scared for my health,” said Alejandra, a sex worker in Tijuana, who asked we only use her first name. But it’s on another level if you’re a sex worker. For so many in Mexico, this has been the pandemic’s impossible choice.Īnd it’s a difficult enough choice if you’re a shopkeeper or a cab driver.
Go out, earn a living, but risk your life.
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