I remember making that trip in the 90s, but I was too drunk at the border to find my driver’s license in my pocket so they just waved me through anyway. Those were different times.
late 2000’s here; I went to one of the private, strict christian schools in the area, so no house parties or Greek scene for underage drinkers. So, what did we do? We learned to drink in TJ! IIRC, I think we went down 1.5x per month for two years or so until all of our friend group turned 21 and moved off campus. Luckily, we were usually smart enough to make sure one of us was 100% stone sober while we were across the border (and we always parked on the US side, obvs), but we had friends that still had some close calls.
I had a friend who drove down with a different group that got shaken down when one dumbass got caught by cops peeing in an alley on the way back to the border, and another acquaintance that spent a few weeks in jail on the Mexican side for having two (poorly made) fake twenties in his pocket. As I recall, he didn’t even try to spend them, but got searched for something unrelated and was then held without trial until his parents could get together ten thousand dollars to buy him out.
So, from 2006-2008 or so there still weren’t card readers coming back as a US citizen, but it was definitely getting sketchy. My privileged white-bread ass managed to stay out of trouble (mostly), but I definitely got lucky and wouldn’t recommend it to others. Although, during the daytime it was pretty safe as long as you didn’t get blotto, and going for cheap, delicious tacos and margaritas was a great day trip.
My very good friend, third or fourth generation American but 100% Mexican descent, maybe or maybe not got a little smart with the border agent. We did have to wait a few extra minutes for him in the parking lot on the US side. Meanwhile, the Middle Eastern international student with us had zero issues and whipped out two cans of beer out of his pockets while we waited. If you’re out there Fahad, you rock!
