MR! \ j ) U{- U { ’.: v FRIDAY, MARCH 23, 2001 Cancun rethinks its role as a mecca for spring break by Lee Romney Los Angeles Times March 20, 2001 CANCUN, Mexico - It’s a Tuesday night and time for the ’’Booze Cruise,” an all-you-can-drink ex travaganza billed as “the wildest party in the Caribbean.... If you can remem ber, it s sure to be a night you will not soon forget!!!” After wet T-shirt and “hot body” contests at the island destination, or ganizers call out for a pair of men's underpants. Jeremy Ross, 21, com plies, stripping naked. This is the first spring break visit here for the student from Johnson & Wales University in Rhode Island, and it's all about the party. “It was hot," said Ross, who was lured to Cancun by MTV's coverage of the sex-and-sand vacation pack- With a drinking age of 18 and plenty of free booze promotionals, Cancun bills itself as an alcohol lover’s paradise. The promotions have paid off: Cancun, where the worst of Mexican and U.S. cultures arguably collide, ranks as the No. 1 destination for U.S. students on spring break, surpassing Jamaica and once popular Florida spots, according to leading student travel brokers. Talk to officials here, however, and you might think that Cancun was the capital of the mixed message. Re sponding largely to excesses of years past, the Office of Tourism has stepped up a campaign to plaster ho tel rooms, discos and bars with En glish-language posters and placards asking that students “Be Cool While in Cancun." Students are asked to sign a code of conduct when they land at the air port. “I received the warning note from the local authorities,” it says. “Now 1 know the rules." Those in clude: No public sex or nudity. No drinking or urinating in the street. No University of Wisconsin student group protests Starbucks by Deborah Kades Knight-Ridder Newspapers March 21, 2001 Carrying signs urging consumers to “Think globally, buy locally,” members of the UW-Madison Greens, a student activ ist group, staged modest protests in front of the two Downtown Starbucks Coffee lo- cations Tuesday. At the same time, Starbucks Corp. an nounced at its annual shareholders meet ing in Seattle that it will split its shares 2- for-1, effective March 30. Companies may split their shares to keep prices accessible to individual investors, such as the Starbucks employees who participate in the company’s stock-purchase plan. Starbucks closed at $43.25, down $1.06 for the day. About 40 protesters and onlookers gath ered in front of the Starbucks at 661 State Street at 2:30 p.m., urging consumers to boycott the international gourmet coffee chain and patronize locally owned coffee shops. Organic, “free-trade” coffee was pro vided at no charge by Cafe Assisi, 245 W. Gilman St., said Brian Honermann, an Assisi collective worker/owner and a jun ior at UW-Madison, who participated in the protest. Fewer than a dozen people showed up for an 8 a.m. protest at the Capitol Square Starbucks, 1 E. Main St. Protesters accuse Starbucks of failing to promote its own line of “fair trade” coffee aggressively enough. Fair trade practices attempt to ensure that producers in the Third World receive fair wages. The Madison Greens also charge that Starbucks does not guarantee that its dairy products are free of rBGH, a synthetic dairy hormone that increases milk production. In a detailed letter posted on Starbucks Web site, Orin C. Smith, president and chief executive officer, replied that the company expects to offer rBGH-ffee milk in all its U.S. stores by the end of the year. Starbucks sold two cups of fair trade cof fee to protesters at the State St. location, however it was not one of the coffees fea tured for the day. Starbucks also has Madison stores at 2825 University Ave. and in Barnes & Noble Booksellers, 7433 Mineral Point Road. For more information, see www.fairtradefederation.com and . wai ,r pours . *qu Mexico. The drinking age in Mexico is 18 free rides on public transport. And no rudeness or disruptions of public or der. The campaign is not new. But city officials - increasingly stung by the mixed reputation that the seasonal bash bestows on Cancun - have vowed to enforce rules more aggres sively this year. Reports of crime tar geting U.S. students on spring break also are on the rise as Cancun’s popu lation swells to serve the booming tourist industry. The incidents have prompted warnings from the U.S. State Department, which also advises students to obey Mexican laws of de- cency. The result for Cancun: a delicate ef fort to castigate wild behavior while welcoming the dollars that students bring. “They come to have fun and they are welcome here, but they have to maintain a certain conduct," said New York law students give peace award to former President Clinton by Michael Saul and Dave Goldiner Knight-Ridder Newspapers March 21, 2001 NEW YORK - Bill Clinton’s li cense to practice law has been sus pended, but that hasn’t stop stu dents at Manhattan’s Benjamin Cardozo School of Law from hon- oring him “He is an advocate for peace,” said Matthew Seidner, a member of one of the two student groups that gave Clinton the International Ad vocate for Peace Award. Clinton spoke about his efforts to bring peace to the Mideast and Ireland at the award ceremony Monday, which was not endorsed by the school’s administration. A handful of protesters held signs ridiculing the former President for ALL UNITS WITHIN 10 MINUTES FROM SCHOOL SAFE SECURE BUILDING SAFE WELL-LIT OFF STREET PARKING LOTS 24-HOUR EMERGENCY MAINTENANCE WALL-TO-WALL CARPET CENTRAL AIR CONDITIONING ALL TOWNHOUSE UNITS INCLUDE LIVINGROOM KITCHEN with all appliances, including dishwasher BREAKFAST ROOM with sliding glass doors onto private patio TWO BATHROOMS PRIVATE ENTRY TWO AND THREE BEDROOM UNITS AVAILABLE WASHER AND DRYER HOOK UPS NATIONAL CAMPUS NEWS Manuel Escalante Sosa, director of special projects for the local Office of Tourism, who is heading efforts to tone down the celebration. “We don’t want to tarnish the image of Cancun.” Rachel Sater, a marketing coordi nator for Los Angeles-based STA Travel, which bills itself as the world's largest student travel agency, puts it more bluntly. “I feel sorry for the Mexican gov ernment,” she said. “I’m sure they don’t want people throwing up in the streets and taking their clothes off, but they want the revenue.” The dance of excess, offense and capitalism plays out each year in this Caribbean theme park at the north eastern tip of the Yucatan Peninsula. As many as 100,000 college students end on Cancun each year in a six week bacchanal that begins in late February and peaks in mid-March. Baltimore-based Student Travel the Monica Lewinsky scandal. Clinton agreed to give up practic ing law for five years to avoid pros ecution for lying about the Lewinsky affair while under oath. “It’s wrong to be giving any award from a law school to some one who can't practice law,” said law student David Ben-Haim, 23. “Clinton is someone who has no ethics.” “Clinton is doing anything he can to get any award he can,” added Peretz Berk, 35. Since leaving office, Clinton has been at the center of two new scan dals outrage over his pardon of a fugitive financier whose ex-wife has donated heavily to Clinton’s presidential library and the Demo cratic Party and criticism over a now-scuttled plan to rent pricey offices next to Carnegie Hall. BEHRENIVS#! Oi l -CAMPUS HOUSING PROVIDER PENN STATE BEHREND STUDENT OFF-CAMPUS APARTMENTS New Town House Apartments 2 & 3 BEDROOM UNITS , a popi Services, the main supplier of spring break packages to STA Travel and smaller agencies, sent 9,000 students last weekend alone. An elongated strip of 142 hotels, Cancun exists purely on tourist dol lars. Some industry sectors, such as bars and discotheques, earn as much as 70 percent of their annual revenue from the travelers dubbed “los spring breakers,” said Julian Balbuena, gen eral manager of Best Day Tours, which organizes the Booze Cruise and tamer tourist events. The students fill about 15 percent of Cancun’s more than 25,000 hotel rooms weekly during the season, pushing overall occupancy to 90 per cent, Escalante said. That means fully 75 percent are filled with older tour ists, in some of the most elegant ho tels in the Americas. But the college crowd is most noticeable. Some hotels - including the Melia Even as his approval ratings have plunged, he has made the rounds of corporations and aca demic audiences in search of friendly turf. Presidential historian Henry Nsivy football player accused of second rape in Baltimore ' home four days prior to the June 30 charged in the June 30 incident with; :MafcK2o,sool '■ incident. second-degree rape, attempted sec ;;.V-V ' !>/ The Baltimore college student ond-degree rape, second-degree two U.S.Naval Academy didn’t file charges with the Anne sexual offense, attempted second-de fpptball players charged with raping Arundel County authorities until De- S ree sexual offense, third-degree 1 fernaleclassmate last summer was cember. sexual offense, and conspiracy to seemly accused of raping a Baltimore Brittingham was charged with sec- commit second-degree rape, prosecu- Uege student. ond-degree rape, second-degree at- tors said. tempted rape, third-degree sex offense In the case against Williams and and conspiracy to commit second-de- Brittingham, prosecutors have put the gree rape stemming from the June 30 charges on hold under a settlement incident, according to the Anne requiring that they resign from the : Arundel County prosecutor’s office, academy and have no contact with the ; Arion|Ceith Williams, 22, was also female Navy student. •PALERMO REALTY* Visit our Website at joepalermo.com/ PALERMO REALTY 407 WEST BTH STREET 455-6533 [spot in BREAKFAST ROOM with sliding glass doors onto private deck Cancun and Cancun Palace - are re jecting the spring breakers outright this year because of the damage they cause. Most others require a $lOO-a-person damage deposit. For Cancun residents, reac tions range from bemusement to disgust. “I’ve never been to the U.S., but I hear it’s nothing like it is here,” said Alejandra Rojas, a 29- year-old waitress at Tequila Boom, a spring break dance spot. “People have sex under the tables and in the phone booths.” For Rojas, the job pays well, and night work allows her to spend more time with her 8-year-old daughter. But she said not all the locals can stomach the raunchy contests and behavior. “They come here and feel like kings of the world,” she said of the students “Some times they create disasters and break things.” The disrespect is mutual. Some spring breakers complain of being overcharged and mistreated. “They won’t serve you your free drinks unless you tip them, and they’re so mean,” said Marla Beck, 19, a Johnson & Wales student who said she unwittingly paid the equivalent of $5O for a drink and wasn’t offered change. Even Mexicans concede that the U.S. students are sometimes gouged. “In reality, they’re robbed,” said Primiti vo Garcia Balderas, a waiter at a relatively upscale restaurant that does not attract too many spring break revelers. Some spring breakers allege far worse: “They stole my clothes. They drugged me. They called me a whore, and then they kicked me out of the hotel,” said a 19-year-old American student who believes that her drink was spiked and that she was then sexu ally assaulted at her hotel pool by a local. She did not call police out of fear, Graff said Clinton knows the pub lic will eventually turn back to him. “You do know he will bounce back,” said Graff, a professor at Co lumbia University. “He is the Comeback Kid.” Available Fall 2001 New Three Bedroom Single Family Homes MAXIMUM THREE STUDENTS PER HOUSE ALL UNITS 10 MINUTES FROM SCHOOL SAFE RESIDENTIAL NEIGHBORHOOD 24-HOUR EMERGENCY MAINTENANCE WALL-TO-WALL CARPET CENTRAL AIR CONDITIONING ALL HOMES INCLUDE PRIVATE DRIVEWAY AND GARAGE PRIVATE FRONT AND REAR YARD LIVINGROOM with fireplace, built-in bookcases KITCHEN with all appliances, including dishwasher TWO BATHROOMS TWO BEDROOMS ON SECOND FLOOR ONE BEDROOM ON GROUND FLOOR WITH SLIDING DOORS ONTO PATIO she said, nor did she notify the U.S. consular representative in Cancun. In stead, she racked up $l,OOO in long distance calls to her mom, who helped place her in a different hotel. The consular office in Cancun re ferred calls about spring break troubles to the U.S. Embassy in Mexico City. A spokesman there would not provide data on complaints or crime reports but noted that the State Department Fact Sheet on spring break in Cancun, released Feb. 22, refers to “increasing reports of crime It advises travelers that such crimes as rape “sometimes involve alcohol and the discotheque environment” and that belongings should not be left on the beach unattended. During the first half of the 19905. before Cancun made its name as an upscale destination for honeymoon ers and older couples, March and April were painfully slow months. Spring break filled that gap. Now, some hotel operators and civic boost ers are questioning whether it's worth it. “Everyone’s getting very hard on spring break,” said the manager at nightspot Fat Tuesday's, who de clined to give his name. “Out of 90,000 people we get, we might have 40 problems. That’s very good.” Still, city officials are tightening re strictions. Meetings with law enforce ment and transportation officials, as well as members of the hotel, bar and discotheque associations, began last September in preparation for this sea son, Escalante said. Volunteer Mexi can students are staffing the airport on weekends to hand out and explain the code of conduct. And tour brokers have been asked to send a particularly clear message to students to clean up their act. Cancun officials and tour operators say problems are far from represen tative. The vast majority of tourists are older than 18, they add, and le gally responsible for their behavior. Clinton has made several $lOO,OOO lectures and headed to Europe last week for a whirlwind speaking tour of three countries that netted about $600,000.
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