Will a City Ordinance Mean Lights Out for Puerto Rico’s Hottest Nightspots?

SAN JUAN, PUERTO RICO — The hubbub of voices and music spilling from bars and restaurants begins to die down. It’s 1 a.m. on a Friday night, and the streets have turned blue with the lights of the San Juan Municipal Police patrol vehicles. Lit signs are switched off to announce that businesses will close soon.

Similar scenes unfold across the city’s tourist areas, from colonial Old San Juan and the beaches of Condado to the famous Calle Loíza and Río Piedras, a university district. By 2 a.m., the streets are empty. When confused tourists ask where they can keep the night going, they’re hit with a new reality: Most of these businesses have closed because of an ordinance.

The Code of Public Order of the Municipality of San Juan went into effect in November 2023. It sought to update and unify eight ordinances that had gone unchanged for 26 years and were being applied differently in various areas of the Puerto Rican capital. The new code was also intended to promote peace and quiet in the neighborhoods. But business owners interviewed by Global Press Journal say the code has cost bars and restaurants monthly financial losses between 20% and 50% and is threatening tourism.

Although the code doesn’t mandate a closing time, it prohibits restaurants and bars from selling alcoholic beverages past 1 or 2 a.m., depending on the day of the week. Owners say that if they can’t sell alcohol, they are effectively forced to close their doors at those hours.

Yerimar Rivera Rivera, GPJ Puerto Rico

La Placita de Santurce is known for its food and nightlife.

José Rivera runs a bar called Maui near La Placita de Santurce, an area known for its restaurants and nightlife. He says he has seen the economic impact firsthand.

“Puerto Ricans don’t want to come to the area. It’s understandable because the timing isn’t feasible. Before, you’d usually leave work at 5 p.m. It would be 7 p.m. by the time you got home, or 9 p.m. if you stopped at the mall,” Rivera says, to illustrate the window of time left to enjoy the night.

“That’s why there aren’t any Puerto Ricans ‘jangueando’ here anymore,” he says, using a local term that derives from “hanging out.” “Maybe they’re deciding to stay in their towns.”

Ricardo Quiles González, a Juncos resident, confirms that closing times deter him from going out in San Juan, about 20 miles from his home in southeast Puerto Rico. “I go out ‘jangueando’ closer to home and skip the hassle. It’s not worth hanging out there when they close so early.”

“At one time, Puerto Rico was considered the capital of ‘jangueo,’ and now people feel confused,” says Douglas Marín Magaña, owner of El Quinqué de Douglas’ Pub in Old San Juan.

“Lots of tourists get annoyed. They come to the Caribbean, and you take their fun away,” he says. “They even think it’s you who doesn’t want to serve them. They don’t know about the [latest] rules.”

Yerimar Rivera Rivera, GPJ Puerto Rico

Restaurants and live music bars like El Refugio now empty after 1 a.m. due to new time limits for alcoholic beverage sales.

Adrianna Rosario was on vacation in Puerto Rico. “I was surprised that San Juan closed so early,” she says. “Someone told me about the new rule, and I was really disappointed.”

In Old San Juan, one of the Caribbean’s tourism hotspots, business owners say that closing just one hour earlier has led to daily losses of 1,000 to 2,000 United States dollars.

The change has also hurt businesses that were only open until midnight before the code, such as El Refugio, a bar in Río Piedras.

“Before, people would say, ‘I’ll stop by this place for a while, then I’ll go somewhere else.’ Now that everything closes at the same time, they are forced to choose just one place to go out and have a good time,” says the owner, Faran Martínez. He says he hasn’t gotten more customers by staying open an hour or two later.

Bars and restaurants vs. hotels and casinos

Rafael “Culma” González Santos, owner of a bar called El Lab in Río Piedras, says the code is unfair. Nightclubs, casinos and bars that operate inside hotels “may continue to sell or dispense alcoholic beverages to their guests for consumption within the hotel,” under an exception in the code.

But business owners point out that there is no protocol in place to ensure hotels are serving only their guests and nobody else.

González Santos says that despite his efforts to adapt and offset financial losses, his income has decreased by around 50% in the past months. Before the current code, his bar could sell alcoholic beverages until 5 a.m.

“Lots of people from the [restaurant] industry would come when they got off work” after midnight, he says. “I’ve tried to adapt by opening earlier and it hasn’t worked.”

Yerimar Rivera Rivera, GPJ Puerto Rico

Empty streets and closed businesses shortly after 1 a.m. near La Placita de Santurce, an area that used to be packed until late on Sunday nights.

The ordinance has also created tension with the San Juan Municipal Police, which oversees the code’s enforcement.

González Santos stresses that the police have not been trained on how the code should be applied. “There’s no dry law here. If I’m not selling or serving [alcoholic] drinks after the established time, I’m not breaking the law,” he says, referring to the Municipal Police’s attempts to fine his business because customers were drinking alcohol they had bought before the time cutoff.

Global Press Journal made repeated attempts to contact the Municipal Police but received no response. It has the authority to issue fines of 500 to 5,000 dollars for a variety of infractions, including selling alcohol outside the established times and excessive noise. If businesses receive more than three of these specific fines within a year, they can lose their operating license and must wait a full year before requesting a new one.

The mayor responds

“San Juan remains open 24/7 for people who want to enjoy our capital city and everything it has to offer, which is certainly much more than alcohol in the wee hours of the morning,” says Miguel Alberto Romero Lugo, San Juan’s mayor and the driving force behind the code change.

Romero says that business owners have shown no evidence of their alleged financial losses. He also says he is willing to continue training the Municipal Police.

“The code is not written in stone, and it will always be open to the possibility of being amended as necessary for its fair and efficient implementation, always for the benefit of San Juan residents and business owners,” he says.

Yerimar Rivera Rivera, GPJ Puerto Rico

People enjoy nightlife in San Juan, which business owners say is under threat due to the municipality’s recently updated Code of Public Order.

Business owners interviewed for this article accept that there should be a code to ensure a healthy and peaceful coexistence with nearby communities.

“I agree with the idea of an order to keep the music down after a certain time, but the time should be later and more flexible,” says Gabriel Díaz, who owns a bar near La Placita de Santurce.

However, business owners insist that the current code is not a viable solution. They contend that the consequences will worsen when summer ends and the flood of tourists subsides. Rivera, the owner of Maui, says, “Once tourism goes — boom! San Juan is dead.”