DRUG WAR MEANS AN EARLY NIGHT IN REYNOSA

REYNOSA -- Once mobbed with a mix of American teenagers, roaming
mariachis and cowboy hat-clad locals headed to the dance halls, Zona
Rosa, the city's nightlife district, is eerily quiet these days.

In the early evening, many of the restaurants and bars are shuttered,
and those that remain open make do on a smattering of customers,
nursing beers quietly in the corner.

"After 10 p.m. there's nobody out in the city," Patricia Duran, the
manager of Mr. Bomb Bar and Pool, said in Spanish.

"The military is everywhere, so people stay home. They don't want to
be searched, especially the women."

Since Mexican President Felipe Calderon ordered soldiers to the
Tamaulipas border last month in an effort to crack down on drug
trafficking, Reynosa has taken on the feel of an occupied city.
Soldiers are posted at intersections and drive around in armored
vehicles topped with .50-caliber machine guns. Each day's raids of
the Gulf Cartel and the paramilitary group the Zetas tops that night's news.

Now bar and restaurant owners, even proprietors in the city's
red-light district Boys Town, are closing their doors at 10 p.m.,
bringing an end to the city's all-night revelry.

The reason for the curfew is a matter of debate.

Jeffrey Salcedo Cantu, an official with the city of Reynosa, said no
one in the city government, nor any state or federal authorities, has
imposed a regulation forcing establishments to close at 10 p.m. He
said he believed the business owners had taken the initiative to
close to try to avoid being raided by the military -- apparently in
search of drug traffickers.

Bar managers and owners interviewed for this story said authorities
had forced them to close down, though the owners could not specify
which agency.

Such confusion is not uncommon in Reynosa, a rapidly expanding city
where tension between the government and the residents is a facet of life.

The bars started closing down early a month ago, about the same time
a shoot-out between soldiers and suspected drug traffickers brought
the city to a near halt.

Since then, what little traffic there was from Americans has all but
dried up, said Cesar Martinez, president of the Reynosa Chamber of
Commerce and owner of two well known restaurants.

"These rumors go around because no one knows what the military is
actually doing. No one's giving the information," Martinez said.

The effects are already being felt, as revenues in Zona Rosa drop to
almost nothing and bar staff make do with reduced hours.

"I used to work every day until 4 a.m.," Cerrillo Gamez, a cashier at
Imperial Cocktail Lounge, said in Spanish.

"I've been working here 35 years and now they just have me working
weekends. Things need to change soon because everyone's losing."

Outside 1040, a popular nightclub, bouncer Jose Luis Hernandez said
he was hopeful the club's young clientele would return for this
weekend but admitted that was unlikely.

"We never used to get busy until midnight or 1 a.m.," he said.

The situation isn't expected to improve until the military loosens
its hold over the city and the raids cease, and when that will be is
anybody's guess, said Salcedo, the city official.

In the meantime, bar owners said they will have to continue calling
it a night at 10 p.m.

Inside Mr. Bomb on Thursday evening, a group of Reynosa teenagers
drank happily and smoked cigarettes as they shot a game of pool. They
had recently turned 18, the legal drinking age in Mexico, and had
been looking forward to enjoying the city's nightlife.

"It's terrible" said Fernando Guillen.

"There's nowhere to have fun anymore." __

La Frontera staff writer Marta Leticia Hernandez contributed
reporting to this story. _

James Osborne covers McAllen and general assignments for The Monitor