Downtown El Paso businesses reopen, but ongoing border restrictions leave them with few customers

EL PASO, Texas -- Some downtown El Paso businesses closed for the past several weeks have now opened their doors following the Texas governor’s green light to do so.

But there is one part of the picture that is badly missing: Customers.

Shop owners told ABC-7 on Monday that they are struggling and miss the purchasing power provided by El Paso's neighbors to the south in Juarez.

The downtown business owners want to let the Mexican consumers back into the U.S. in order to jump-start their sales.

The cash register inside Benjamin Kim's sneaker store on El Paso Street is not ringing because there are no customers to buy shoes.

“I just opened the store to serve the customer and for my employees. I cannot pay the employees without selling some stuff," said Kim. "So no profit for me.”

Downtown El Paso looked like a virtual ghost town in recent weeks, with business after business closed. It was a stark contrast from Monday.

Although some shops are now open, others remain shuttered because Mexicans are not being permitted to cross into El Paso due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

“Well they are not letting them cross, but they are the ones lifting up downtown El Paso, because I don’t believe the people from Coronado will come and shop downtown,” said Maria Dueñez, while she pushed her small shopping cart filled with groceries.

Dueñez owns a home in El Paso, but lives primarily in Juarez and is able to cross when she needs to. Her Juarez neighbors tell her they too would like to shop across the border if they could.

Dueñez took notice of how empty streets and shops were Monday and observed that there was only one way to improve business downtown, and that's by allowing border crossings again.

“Mexican customers are more than 50 per cent of the downtown business.” Kim said.

The downtown retailer said he hopes to remain in operation long enough for the crossing order to be lifted and his customer base to return.