August 15, 2006
Section: Business
Page: 01C
By Sarah Ryley
The Detroit News
DETROIT - It's standing-room only on both floors of the Mexican Town Restaurant on a Monday evening, and nearly everyone is Canadian. Customers wait a good two hours to eat what they say is the best Mexican food around, and to take advantage of the southwest Detroit restaurant's weekly promotion that accepts Canadian money on par with the American dollar.
The happening social scene doesn't hurt, either. "Oh my Gaaaawd!" screeches Sarah Coutts, 21, a regular patron, as she recognizes a friend who is heading out the door.
"She comes here every week," friend Tiffany Desjarlays, 20, says smiling. "I come here maybe once a month to eat and shop, mainly at Great Lakes Crossing."
Coutts and Desjarleys are typical Canadian "day-trippers," the type that make spontaneous trips to Metro Detroit and spend an estimated $322 million each year on food, retail, concerts, sporting events and lodging, according to the Detroit Regional Chamber. That haul could drop by an estimated 30 to 40 percent if a new law requiring a passport to cross any U.S. land border takes effect Jan. 1, 2008.
The law - called the Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative - was passed in 2004 to tighten border security by limiting the number of documents U.S. Customs agents can accept. But many in both the Detroit and Windsor business communities are calling for a compromise, saying they can't afford for people to be turned away.
Members of Congress are responding by crafting amendments that would delay implementation of the law until at least June 2009, allow travelers to use a cheaper, high-tech version of a passport under development called a PASS card, and waive requirements for minors.
Otherwise, by 2008 an American family of four would have to spend $358 on passports, good for five or 10 years depending on the applicant's age, to cross the border.
"People don't want to spend more money out of pocket, especially when they're used to crossing for free," says Lisa Katz, the Detroit Regional Chamber's director of government relations.
Nascent 9-11 recovery
Critics on both sides of the Detroit River say more stringent document requirements will only slow border crossings. Wait times at Metro Detroit's three land crossways have often exceeded one hour since early August, when officials beefed up security after a federal report divulged that investigators were able to breeze by border agents by using fake identification or none at all. Security remains vigilant in the wake of last week's foiled terrorist attacks, says Ron Smith, chief public affairs officer for the Detroit field office of U.S. Customs and Border Protection.
After the September 11 attacks, it took trucks more than 12 or 13 hours to cross the Ambassador Bridge. But the process has been expedited since with new technology - machine readable passports and commuter passes with a radio signal that pull up the driver's information before the car even reaches the booth.
"We can clear those cars in 15 to 20 seconds," Smith says. Even so, the number of vehicles that cross the Ambassador Bridge and the Detroit-Windsor Tunnel - the two busiest international crossways in North America, respectively - has dropped 27 percent since 2000, to 15.2 million last year. Mexican Town Restaurant owner Colleen DiMattia says business has only begun to recover since September 11, but if the passport legislation becomes law, "I'm sure initially it would hurt us."
She estimates that on any given night, 70 percent of her customers are Canadian.
Jim Townsend, executive director of Detroit's Tourism Economic Development Council, says marketing the Motor City's lineup of festivals and cultural attractions to Metro Windsor "is not an opportunity we're going to take advantage of if it's really cumbersome to get across the border."
In Windsor, the hassles of border crossings - coupled with Ontario's smoking ban - have already hurt gambling at Casino Windsor and the city's once-popular bingo halls.
At Great Lakes Crossing in Auburn Hills, Melissa Morange, marketing and sponsorship director, is more optimistic. "We're an attraction that people come to spend the entire day at, so I would hope they would continue to visit us," she says.
How it would work Because Canada accounts for 60 percent of Michigan's international trade, and is by far the United States' top trading partner, Rep. Thaddeus McCotter, R-Livonia, is proposing that the northern border be regulated differently than the U.S.-Mexican border.
"In the south, we're trying to stop people from illegally coming across, in the north, we're trying to facilitate people to legally come across," he says.
But supporters of the Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative contend that it is focused mainly on U.S. and Canadian citizens because most Mexican citizens are already required to present secure documentation at the border, such as a visa or U.S. issued border crossing card.
Customs agents at the U.S.-Canadian border, on the other hand, accept up to 8,000 different documents - often a birth certificate and driver's licenses - that are prone to counterfeiting, said Department of Homeland Security spokesman Jarrod Agen.
The fewer forms of identification accepted, the faster agents can verify their legitimacy, he says.
The PASS card would be wallet-size, cost travelers $55 and take four weeks to process. The Department of Homeland Security would like the card to contain embedded technology that would quickly link to national databases and pull up the driver's information via radio signal as the car approaches the customs booth.
Amendments in the House and Senate would reduce that cost to between $20 and $34, which could limit the technological capabilities of the card.
"Whatever is done should be convenient and not too costly," says Sen. Debbie Stabenow, D- Mich., who helped pass amendments to the initiative in the Senate.
Hassle cuts border traffic
On a recent night, a majority of U.S. and Canadian citizens hanging out in southwest Detroit, Greektown or the Windsor Casino expressed apathy about the legislation.
But the steady drop in border crossings seems to suggest differently. Katz says many people avoid crossing the border because of the "perceived hassle." Mattie Burks of Detroit is one of those people.
"It's just too much of a hassle, I don't like getting harassed and I don't like all the questions," says Burks, 57, who used to go to Casino Windsor, but since September 11 only goes to the one in Greektown.
Asked if she would buy a passport or PASS card to cross the border if required, she responds, "Why do I have to spend the extra money?"
$321.7 million is pumped into southeast Michigan's economy every year by Canadian tourists.
147,000 jobs in Michigan are supported by U.S. - Canadian trade.
27 percent of U.S. citizens and 30 percent of Canadians have passports.
$800 per vehicle: The additional cost due to increased documentation, inventory delays and cross-border processing
time since September 11.
Sources: Detroit Regional Chamber, Canadian/American Border Trade Alliance, U.S. Customs and Border Protection,
Homeland Security
