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Jerry Olivas, EdD
Hi All,
I recently saw the movie Licorice Pizza which brought back a lot of Chula Vista memories from the 60s. I do recommend it, but it is a little quirky—but kind of funny—and romantic too. Not sure how many of us had ‘small businesses’ during are Hilltop days, but here is a story of a rather profitable illicit business I, and I can’t remember who else (I think a few of us did this), had going.
Once again, T.J. fit into the lives of us young Chula Vista kids in the 60s. Some of us on occasion would ‘smuggle’ a few bottles of alcohol back across the border. Usually this was for us, but on occasion we would sell it to other ‘fun loving’ trouble makers like us.
I think this business endeavor started during my sophomore year at Hilltop. Easter vacation, as it used to be called, was party time for kids like us in a lot of places in Southern California. Mission Beach was always fun, but Balboa Island and Palm Springs was even more crazy fun. Everyone was looking for booze, and finding someone to buy for you, or buying yourself, was a bit of a hassle. Bingo, why not buy a bunch of booze in T.J. and sell it, at a handsome profit to other kids—'just to help them have fun’ (I was so altruistic in those days 😊).
First, we concentrated on Mission Beach, then Balboa Island, then Palm Springs. We mostly sold Rum, El Presidente, ½ pints (dark). For light weights this could easily be mixed with coke, but mostly it was drank straight up out of the bottle. I do remember Larry Cook could take down a pint of this and still drive fairly straight. We paid something like 35¢ a bottle and top resale price was about $10 in Palm Springs, $5 on Balboa Island, and less in Mission Beach. Sales occurred day and night an often we would make two runs to T.J. in a day.
There was no hustle at all in selling we would just park anywhere and within a few minutes of just saying to people “you want to buy some booze” a crowd would gather, and everything would sell quickly. Usually, we would sell around 25 bottles for cash money. I remember having all this cash and trying to count it and recount it, with a big smile on my face, thinking I was rich. I did wonder what my parents might think when I would buy a motorcycle, surfboards, or maybe a vette. I did really want one of those vettes. Gary Kennedy purchased, I think just after high school, a sweet 1958 Corvette that was so, so sweet. I never was sure how he got the money for that, but that’s another illicit story, I think.
Here was the main problem with this business, “how to get 25 or so ½ pints of booze across the border”. First, not a problem going to or coming back from T.J. or buying booze in T.J. In those days no one seem to care what age you were, and if you did get questioned or caught by Immigration or Customs at the border, it was pretty much a ‘slap on the wrist’. As far as buying booze in T.J. the worst that would happen was that you would just be refused to purchase the booze, in which case you would just go to another liquor store.
The smuggling side was a little tricky, but we devised a failsafe plan. Each of the ½ bottles was packed neatly in the front door panels of my ’52 Willys jeep station wagon (I did love that jeep). If searched at the boarder the back panels were always checked first, and if nothing was found you were usually free to go. Secondly, we would put one or two bottles under the front seats as decoys. If those were found the Custom’s Officer would simply pour them out in front of us, take our names, and give us a little scolding. And this did happen a few times.
The trick was to act and sound like a stupid kid from Chula Vista when the Immigration Officer ask you where you were born (not “what’s your nationality”). Another trick was trying to use the lane that had fathers of friends that were an Immigration Officers. They would always just wave us through.
We did well money wise, and being a ‘smart’ kid, I never saved any of it and usually it was spent within a week or two.
Only one time that I can remember did anything go wrong. A couple of stronger than us guys robbed us of all of our rum on Balboa Island. They just approached us, and said we are taking all your booze, and if you give us any trouble we will beat the sh*t out of you. They took it all, but not any money we had. But in the short run it did not go good for them because we followed them and saw what they were driving. Later that night we saw their car park near were they robbed us. Let’s just say we prevented anyone from driving while they were intoxicated, and some repairs were going to be needed to make their wheels whole again.
In the early 70s I had two other interesting short but sweet businesses; selling 501 Levi’s in Trieste, Italy and Waterbeds in France. Bought the Levi’s for $5, sold each one for about $50 and bought the Waterbeds for around $60 and sold each one for around $500. Like the Rum business, the money was good but in reality it was more about just having a good time.
Always great to hear from others. I know that I was not the only one involved in some interestingly fun, on the edge just a little, activities.
Ciao, Jerry
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). Go GIRL! Jerry
