In this community, your keychain can hold access to shopping after hours

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The MRKT at the Montecillo apartment community is never closed to residents – even if no one is on duty. Instead, residents of this smart-growth community on El Paso’s West Side can use a special key fob to enter the bodega and shop after hours. The cashierless concept follows the technology innovation of vendors like Apple, Sam’s Club and Amazon Go that make it convenient for shoppers to use an app to scan their own purchases and bypass a checkout line. The scan-and-go shopping concept is slowly catching on across the U.S., but mainly only available through major companies and generally limited to large, digitally savy cities. Amazon operates its Amazon Go convenience stores in Seattle, Chicago and San Francisco.

J.C.Penney, one of the preferred places of Mexican shoppers at El Paso. (Mariel Torres/Borderzine.com)

Mexican pesos ring up holiday sales in U.S. border cities

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ELPASO – As the holidays approach, stores around the world compete to attract the most customers, but merchants in U.S. border cities have the advantage that many Mexican customers cross the border to do their Christmas shopping here. According to study presented by the El Paso branch of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, Mexican nationals spend approximately $1.4 billion a year in El Paso. The study conducted by economist Roberto Coronado released in June 2011 shows the huge impact of cross-border retail activity on El Paso’s economy. Adrian Mijares has managed the J.C. Penney store in downtown El Paso for more than two years. Like many downtown merchants, his store’s success is directly linked to shoppers from Mexico.

Juárez businesses fleeing violence open doors north of the border

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EL PASO — Three years ago, Carlos Gallardo Baquier’s 14-year-old son was victim of a kidnapping attempt. Three armed men assaulted the boy just outside the garage of his house, but before they caught him he escaped. The event, however, prompted his family to flee Juárez, leaving behind their already successful catering business in the city. “It was traumatic for the entire family,” Gallardo Baquier said. “Even though it is more difficult to manage our business here because of the regulations, it is more important to be safe.”

For 20 years, Gallardo-Baquier, owner of Gastronómica de Juárez, ran the successful food service company for maquiladoras in Ciudad Juárez.

Living in constant fear, Mexicans long for the good life they lost

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EL PASO, Texas —Little is known about the truth behind the Cartel Wars, but one thing is certain, they must end. They are a constant plague on our way of life, the borderway.  For more than four decades, the citizens of the borderland have been subject to a war that brewed and heated until it erupted only four years ago. Frankly, the people here do not care who is in charge, to them the only person they call “boss” is Bruce Springstein, and maybe Pedro Infante. Regardless, we the people say screw these bastards who are endangering our Juarense brothers and sisters. We demand to be protected and we will not accept the current standard.