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Tijuana police target tinting of car glass


Crackdown goes after windows darkened with special material
By Anna Cearley
UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER
September 26, 2005

TIJUANA – Tinted car windows have a dark connotation in Tijuana, where members of organized crime gangs are known to drive around with pitch-black glass.

In an attempt to make it harder for criminals to operate anonymously, police have started fining people who have darkened their windows "beyond normal," said the city's director of public security, Ernesto Santillana Santillana.

"All the criminals use tinted windows, so this will help lower crime," he said last week, not long after he had ordered police to start enforcing the law more strictly.

The city's crackdown affects cars that are darkened with special material, such as sheets of plastic, but not those that come from the manufacturer with tinted glass, according to city police. It applies to tourists and locals alike.

The announcement by Santillana to enforce what has been a city policy for years didn't seem to be hurting the business of local car shops.

Workers, standing outside their shops, continued to wave samples of the tinted sheets to flag customers down, many who come from the United States. Applying the sheets costs about $50 at several shops, and removing them at one place cost $15.

"Every time they change the government, they do this," said Rodrigo González Sánchez, who works at an auto shop near the border.

Santillana, however, said the current administration, which is a year old, is taking a tougher stance. Some people are receiving warnings. About 300 were ticketed during the first week, he said, and fined about $50. He also said more than 20 city police were arrested for using personal cars with too-dark windows. The officers each spent 36 hours in jail, he said.

Some police privately said the dark-tinted windows are necessary to prevent criminals from identifying them and possibly targeting them.

Witnesses to abductions and other crimes often describe the assailants as having vehicles with pitch-black windows.

González, the auto shop worker, said most people want the tinted sheets to decrease the sun's glare and to prevent their cars from being broken into because the darker shade obscures a car's contents.

Several car shop owners said they hadn't received any formal notification about what kind of shades are considered illegal. Most offer three shades of tinted sheets, ranging from 5 percent visibility – the darkest – to 35 percent visibility.

They said they typically place the lighter sheets at the front of the car and the darker shades in the back. However, the percentages are deceiving because most cars are manufactured with windows that have sun-screening capabilities, said a California Highway Patrol spokesman.

The edict from Santillana appears to be aimed at cars that have all their windows tinted so darkly that it's impossible to see anything inside.

The Tijuana police department's public relations director, Alfonso RamÃÂ*rez, said that as long as officers can see inside the cars, there shouldn't be a problem. The city's traffic code says people can be ticketed for using tinted sheets "that are an obstruction to visibility."

Police seem to have different definitions as to how dark is too dark.

At El Volcán Colima Polarizado shop, workers were removing the tinted sheets from two cars one recent morning. Neither of the car owners, however, had tinted sheets that completely obscured the inside of the car.
Jorge Vega, 23, was paying a worker $15 to scrape the sheets and lining from his car, a day after police ticketed him.

"They said it was too dark and I couldn't use them because of a new law and they don't want people to have these for criminal activities," said Vega, an industrial engineering student at the Autonomous University of Baja California. "It's a good idea for those who are criminals, but for those who aren't, it's not fair."

He said that police stopped him again on his way to the shop to have the sheets removed.

Tijuana resident Fernando López, 55, was getting his tinted sheets scraped off at the same shop after receiving a warning from a police officer. It was the first time he had been stopped by officers for the tinted coloring since he got the car six months ago.

"It's a good campaign because there are so many kidnappings and people who go around with guns in their cars, and because of that it doesn't bother me," he said.

At the Cadillac Shop, one of a slew of car repair places near the border that cater to U.S. residents, workers said they are still doing a brisk business darkening the shades of car windows. The shop applies the screens to about 30 cars a week.

"Most people who get these are doing it to protect themselves against the sun, and because it's a nicer look," said employee Raúl González.

RamÃÂ*rez, with the city's police department, said it's up to the city government to determine whether to crack down on the shops.

Regulating cars with tinted windows is a challenge on both sides of the border. Brian Pennings, public affairs officer for the California Highway Patrol's El Cajon office, said officers will ticket those cars that have windows that are noticeably darker than those in their own patrol cars. Officers usually issue such tickets in the course of finding other violations.

According to California's vehicle code, the front of a car can't include darkening devices unless the driver has a medical condition requiring the extra protection, Pennings said. Glass in the car's back areas, however, can be as dark as desired as long as the car has rearview mirrors, he said.

Tijuana's vehicle code booklet, carried by police, doesn't include such details.

Santillana said announcements will be posted to let tourists know of the increased attention on tinted window sheets. Cinthya Félix, an assistant in the police agency's media office, said people who believe their cars are being unfairly targeted – including tourists – can ask to be taken to a city judge to contest the fine. The judges have the discretion to lower the fine or even dismiss it, she said.