Getting caught driving with alcoholic breath in this Mexican border city is neither cheap nor easy to quickly put behind.
Fines start at $400 and your vehicle will stay in an impound lot for a week, per a city ordinance. Your fingerprints and photograph will be placed in a permanent police file.
And the laws that got you arrested in Juarez differ substantially from what Texas, New Mexico and all but one U.S. state (Utah) considers legally drunk. The standard here is .05 blood-alcohol level (BAC), compared with .08 in most U.S. states.
Three 12-ounce Modelo Especial beers consumed within an hour can get a 170-pound person there, according to an online calculator from the University of New Mexico.
“From January to today, we’ve married 430 offenders here. Because it’s the border, we’ve had people from the United States. They are 25 percent (of detainees), the U.S. citizens and residents,” said Agustin Chavez Hernandez, director of Juarez’s Municipal Center for Social Integration and Administrative Sanctions.
The rationale behind lowering the definition of drunk driving was preventing accidents. Local news media report at least 12 traffic fatalities and 307 people injured by drunk drivers here in a one-year period. Some crashes have been caught by security cameras.
Even though the party scene for Americans in Juarez has toned down from the wild 1970s and 1980s, U.S. Residents still come across the border to patronize establishments just south of border crossings. Texas license plates can be seen routinely on weekends along Gomez Morin Avenue, Juarez Avenue, and the old Pronaf a mile south of the Bridge of the Americas.
The holding facility for drunk drivers on a highway along the Rio Grande is commonly known as El Cerecito, or Little Jail.
The other surprise for U.S. residents is the steep purposes and how they are assigned.
Chavez said the minimum penalty for a drunk driving arrest in Juarez is 7,000 pesos, or $400, or 18 hours in jail. Almost 9 out of 10 offenders choose temporary confinement.
“You can pay and go out. Most just stay,” the director said.
The fine goes up to $600 or 36 hours in jail depending on how high your BAC is. That is determined by a breathalyzer test administered by a traffic officer (Vialidad) at the scene or at the Little Jail.
Using your one free phone call to hire a lawyer and get an amparo, or writ of habeas corpus, might get you out quicker but doesn’t expunge the charge from your record and might be just as expensive. Penalties are enhanced to the judge’s discretion for repeat offenders, you should go back.
Luis, a Juarez resident who spent time at the Little Jail, said the best thing to do if you party in Juarez is to drink as little as possible, if not at all.
“I know I shouldn’t have been drinking but I was coming out of a party and I ran into a checkpoint,” Luis said. “They put me through a (field) test and I failed. The took me to the (Little Jail) and I was out in 36 hours. But they took my vehicle to the impound lot.”
I ended up paying 10,000 pesos ($568).
“It was complicated because I was not counting on the expenses. I had to find the money,” Luis said. “It was a lot. But if it doesn’t hurt your pocketbook, I don’t think we’re going to learn. I tell my friends not to drink to avoid all of that.”
