Business Is Slow in San Ysidro

SAN YSIDRO — Javier Banuelos gets excited when he remembers how his grocery used to take in $15,000 a day during the Christmas season. Now, the still cheerful store manager says he’s happy when he gets $9,000.

Dick Dubuque, manager of the Longs Drug Store on San Ysidro Boulevard, remembers how customers six deep would jam the store’s nine checkout counters on busy Fridays. Now the store only has six checkout counters.

Ernesto Jaraba recalls when the small dress store he runs with his wife didn’t have to depend on hopes for the coming year for its survival.

“This year was a disaster,” Jaraba said in Spanish. “I can’t go on this way; I can’t have another year like this year.”

San Ysidro businessmen like Jaraba have spent this holiday season remembering and wishing.

Merchants remember how good things were before 1982, when drastic peso devaluations cut them off from their best customers--Mexican shoppers.

At the beginning of the decade, businesses flocked to the border community to cater to Mexican shoppers, who sometimes made up almost 90% of their clientele.

Many merchants hired only Spanish-speaking help and the “Se Habla Espanol” signs shown in some San Diego stores were replaced by “English Spoken Here” signs.

Now, booming business is only a fading memory for these merchants.

“I’m hoping next year will be good enough to recuperate from this year’s losses,” said Jaraba, adding that his sales were down 30% from last year.

“I have a lot of faith that next year will be better.”

But Jaraba admits that projections for improved business are based on faith alone. He and his fellow merchants know there is no guarantee that sales will be better in 1987.

“Everybody’s hurting,” said Banuelos, whose grocery store used to employ 20 butchers but has cut back to 12.

All merchants agree peso devaluations are the major reason for bad business. The peso has plunged from 26 to the dollar in 1982 to about 900 to the dollar today. Some merchants also cite poor relations between U.S. and Mexico as a factor in depressed trade. Alberto Garcia, a San Ysidro businessman who heads a trade group of about 220 small businesses on both sides of the border, said U.S. border checks that sometimes delay traffic coming from Mexico for up to two hours discourages shoppers from Mexico.

Garcia said the abduction and murder of U.S. drug agent Enrique Camarena in 1985, resulted in the tighter border-crossing controls. He said he is petitioning Congress to look into the situation, which he termed “harassment.”

Garcia and other businessmen say all they can really do is try to advertise in Mexico and tighten their belts until the situation gets better.

Silver Cabras, who manages the Payless Shoe Source on San Ysidro Boulevard, said his store had expected $1 million in sales this year but will probably fall “far short of that.”

“The (plummeting) peso has really hurt us,” Cabras said.

Even though his store will not reach the million dollar mark, Cabras said he is drawing some consolation from projections that Payless will make slightly more profits than last year.

Standing inside his store, Cabras looked out the window at passing traffic and echoed a sentiment expressed by some of his fellow businessmen.

“We were expecting better this year, but we’re going to settle for what we got.”