Tabasco hot over coldbeer ban

Despised law aims to curb alcoholism, drinkingrelated crimes

By ANDREW DOWNIE
Copyright 1997
Special to the Chronicle

VILLAHERMOSA, Mexico The signs are everywhere in this hot and humid
tropical city, teasing and tantalizing citizens and tourists alike with
promises of refreshment, satisfaction and instant gratification.

The ads are cool, welcoming, even pleading. With their glistening bottles
and icy accompaniment, they provide a refuge from the Caribbean sun. Like
suggestive nymphs, they flirt with passing drivers and pedestrians.

Only Superior is Superior, says one. A quality model, the model of quality,
crows another. Grab them! demands a third. I could easily be yours, they
seem to say. If you want me, take me, bathe yourself in my golden elixir.

A cold beer in Tabasco? Ha! Not for much longer.

If the governing Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) has its way,
chilled cervezas will never again be sold in Tabasco's supermarkets and
corner stores, and the thirsty cravings of the worthy people of this poor
southeastern state will go unquenched.

This is Tabasco, where almost 80 percent of the tropical forests have been
cut down, the governor is accused of massive spending violations in an
election campaign his critics said was funded by drug traffickers and where
peasants launch almost weekly stealth attacks on wells and plants owned by
one of the world's richest oil companies.

Despite all that, the overriding political concern here is the ban on cold
beer.

"It is the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard," said William Gonzalez,
the owner of the downtown Miraflores Hotel and cafe. "People cannot go out
and buy themselves a drink or buy some beer for a party or whatever. It is
absurd. People want to drink a cold beer."

The trouble started in February 1996 when PRIled local authorities passed
the Tabasco Alcohol Law. The legislation forbids supermarkets and grocery
stores from selling beer at anything other than "the atmospheric temperature."

The law, which exempts bars, restaurants, discos and other such
establishments, was passed by authorities determined to stamp out what they
claim was increasing alcoholism and related complaints such as public
disturbances, drunken driving and domestic abuse.

"Often here in Tabasco the man of the house, instead of taking his salary
home and helping his wife pay the bills, was going straight to the store
and spending it on beer," said Ester Alicia Dagdug, a local PRI official
who organized the bill's passage. "People were using streets as openair
cantinas. Females who went past were verbally abused, there were fights.
This law is not going to end alcoholism, but it will contribute to lowering
it."

Like jilted lovers served with a restraining order, the law was met with
rage and bitterness by consumers unable to get their hands on the object of
their desire. The bill also met with legal opposition from the thousands of
men and women who own and work in Tabasco's estimated 5,000 tiendas de
abarrotes, small roadside grocery stands that sell the frigid nectar to
thirsty patrons.

The opponents angrily launched a flurry of appeals, some of which are
currently before the nation's Supreme Court. The government, however, has
won most of the legal rulings and expects to defeat the outstanding claims
by the end of the year, Dagdug said. And although cold beer is still
available while the appeals remain pending, drinkers and vendors already
have had a taste of things to come.

There were days, particularly soon after the bill was passed, when shops
were forced to close their doors and frustrated drinkers were forced to go
without.

"Normally we sell about six boxes (of a dozen bottles) a day," said Maria
Cruz, as she stood behind the counter at her small general store. "But on
the days we were only able to sell warm beer we were lucky if we managed to
sell one box. People just don't buy."

Critics say the law is all the more absurd because Tabasco is one of
Mexico's warmest states.

"It's not like banning cold beer in Alaska," said one woman.

Tabasco is synonymous with heat, (the hot sauce borrowing the name is world
famous). The temperature often exceeds 100 degrees and humidity soars right
along with it. People in Tabasco are hot.

And the perfect relief for a scorched palate for a scorched anything,
resident say is a cold beer. Many of the state's 1.6 million people
cannot believe local authorities do not have more important matters to deal
with than banning cold beer.

"You can buy cold beer everywhere in the world," said a disgusted Maria de
los Angeles Olmos, the manager of a small Corona store in one of
Villahermosa's working class neighborhoods. "People here will not take a
warm beer, they want a cold one in their hand. How can you drink a tepid
beer when it's 104?"

Andrew Downie is a freelance journalist based in Mexico City.