Tijuana, Mexico, And The Prohibition Era
By Kevin Wilkerson, Nightlife Blogger, PubClub.com
In the days when you couldn’t (legally anyway) get a drink in the USA, you could go to a speakeasy or find yourself a bootlegger. Or, if you lived in Southern California, you could simply go south and cross the border into Mexico.
In Mexico, there was no Prohibiton, no anti-drinking laws and, for those who liked to throw around their money while imbiding, a bonus – gambling.
While the Prohibition Era in the United States gave rise to bootleggers, criminals, gangsters, speakeasies, flappers and jazz (women, pretty much banned from bars beforehand, suddenly were fixtures at hidden bars, which gave rise to live music because they liked to dance and be entertained while they drank), it also meant something else south of the border. And that is the city of Tijuana.
Before Prohibiton, “TJ” as it’s now called by many Southern Californians, was a sleepy dot in northern Baja, California. A mere 1,000 people lived there. But during the Prohibition Era it boomed and became a playground for celebrities of the day, as well as ordinary folks. A lavish casino, the Agua Caliente, attracted high rollers, celebrities (Charlie Chaplin, Bing Crosby and Clark Gable among them) and even, when he wasn’t shooting up things and people in Chicago, gangster Al Capone.
It also established Tijuana as a place of uninhibited fun with libations, a reputation that still exists today. Tijuana during the Prohibiton Era set the stage for decades of decadence for Southern Californians. It also brought us the Caesars salad and later, in the late 1940s, the margarita.
As we all know from our childhood, if you take something away from us we will find a way to get it anyway. During the Prohibiton Era, that was Tijuana.
Kevin Wilkerson is the Nightlife Blogger for PubClub.com and lives just a few miles from Tijuana in San Diego.
