Sitting at Philly airport waiting for my delayed flight.... As tourism is concerned, its safe, the only spuer bad thing that happened to me was that I lost too much sleep having fun. For someone looking to move to live in Cancun, its seems safe. I hit the town several times and met a lot of folks that migrated to Cancun from other Mex cities, its seems relatively safe. However, it should not be ignored that organizeds crime is expanding and that if you intend to move to Cancun and say open up a business, person will need to research exactly what kind of businesses are being extorted, locals told me dozens of businesses have closed in 2011 rather than pay monthly extortions but I did not ask if it was supermarkets, restaurants, construction.....point is, if moving do plenty plenty of research, if visiting drink a redbull or double espresso when u start losing horsepower.
Yeah V's original post is about 2 weeks old. They did shut down the Playboy Casino, it was closed for about 5 days. I understand they improved fire safety arrangements - alarms, exits etc and it was allowed to re-open once compliant.
We did a blog about Safety and Crime in Playa del Carmen, but much of it is applicable to Cancun as well. If anyone is interested you can find it at; Safety & Crime in Playa del Carmen Mexico 2011: The Truth « Luna Blue’s PlayaZone
Its a very nice right up, sort of standing up for Playa... The problem with gang related/drug related/mafia related/dispute related/vengence related crime is that yes while the victim is often not random, as write up states "targeted" bullets do not have on board navigation systems. Stray bullets kill. When I read months ago that the chief in Playa was killed I wondered what did he know, what was he trying to stop, what case was he working on, in whose way did he get. It's not my intentions to offend the writer of the Playa document but while the Chief was "targeted" the underlying reasons for being such a target are still not known. Did he piss of a childhood friend, did he sleep with the neighbors wife, was he investigating and trying to prevent organized crime from affecting the tourism industry in Playa. Things are not so vanilla and chocalate, black and white. The streets are not in chaos over by the beach, however, things are happening, in the alley ways sort of speak, away form mainstreet. Acapulco never thought it would find itself where it is now. Acapulco meant $$$$$ and those $$$$$$$ were toursim dollars. "targeted" and "isolated" are used by the news media, at times, to create a false sense of security. "targeted" or "isolated" is when a husband targets his wife for murder, when a mentally ill man walks into his place of employment and kills 5 ppl. Explanation is usually easy, guy killed his wife bc he was mentally unstable and she was leaving him, he lost it. Mentally challenged person kills 5 co-workers. Not so simple when the Chief of Police is murdered and trust me authorities know longggggg ago why he was killed they know the underlying reasons.
You seem more interested in semantics than content. We think you missed the point. We use the terms targeted and isolated to distinguish these shootings from random acts where the victims are not specific...the fire bombing of the casino in Monterey as an example. We think most visitors can understand the difference between a random act and a "targeted' one. And yes...the Chief of police might have been killed for reasons of a personal nature or for gang war reasons. We don't know. The point is that the killers weren't randomly shooting into a crowd of tourists and thus the response to these kilings by potential visitors should be different than if they had been so random. As for Acapulco, the differences bewteen that city and Playa or Cancun for that matter are much greater than their similarities. Mexico's east coast has a long history of cartel activity based on its location and ease of access to ground transportation routes for drugs in/guns out. Different cultural and racial heritage of the locals also has an influence. To say that Playa or Cancun will follow Acapulco into drug violence shows a lack of understanding of Mexico..its geography, its people and its history. BTW you are correct in saying there is no chaos by the beach...but you are simply wrong to suggest there is "chaos" anywhere in Playa. Its streets are calm. We know because we walk them everyday. Finally remember how we said above that you missed our point? Well here it is: people with no special knowledge offering damaging opinions about Mexico as fact are acting irresponsibly and do more damage to innocent Mexican families in this area than the cartel does.
I just came back from Mexico so.... I happen to know streets similar to Mexico's. When I say stray, I am also referring to myself, I survived a stray bullet. I like many Mexican citizens have been directly and indirectly affected. 3 Cousins and 1 uncle murdered in the past 5 years. When I post here or anywhere else, I simply try to convey that things are not always how they seem or how the news reports them. Not trying to ruin anyone's economy or jeopardize anyone's job security, again just came back from Mexico. Acapulco was once the gem of tourism, not suggesting Playa is next to be affected. People are concerned for the very same reason I stated, bullets do not have on board navigation. Lastly, as I have stated, anyone traveling to resorts and doing the tourist routine is pretty safe, as safe as any other resort zone. I may not know Playa but I have a clue or two about a thing or two, not a big difference from what I've lived and what's happening in Central and the rest of South America.. Again, was not trying to offend anyone. Oh and let's not forget, I just came back Mexico and I ran thru town as if I lived there.
There are always those who get alarmed at crime, and those who don't. For the most part, knowing that crimes occur in the town I live in doesn't affect me to any degree, whatsoever. There was an armed robbery of a bank a few blocks from where I live. Do you think that changed my behavior to any degree? None whatsoever. I'd go to that bank, and walk that street, as readily as if it had never happened because for me, it's as if it never did. That a robbery occured did not change the risk of my being a victim of crime at all: the risk was the same the day before the robbery, and the same the day after; that is, extremely small. To understand this attitude, it's enough to know I was born, raised and lived in the U.S.A., where crime is present in significant amounts in every large city. Dallas, where I'm from, has had 50% more murders this year than the entire State of Quintana Roo (which includes the City of Cancun), most of them associated in one way or the other with the drug trade, as everywhere; this doesn't make us fearful, it makes us tough. Fearful chatter is just chatter, so far as I'm concerned. At my condo the men have given the women who live alone our cell phone numbers: we're ready to respond to anything they hear or see that they don't like, day or night.
As a frequent tourist to cancun I'd like to add my own 2 cents. I have always felt safe in cancun and every person to be kind and friendly. True, I'm not trying to run a business there, nor to live there. *Although ladies if you are looking for a cabana boy who works for beer let me know* just like anywhere in the world, knowledge is power. Don't put yourself in a position to become a target for organized crime, by flashing a huge billfold. If you operate a business get advice from reputable sources on how to keep you safe at work etc etc. There will be dangers unique to cancun as i'm sure there are in New Jersey and as I know there are in my hometown of Calgary. So is cancun safe? As far as I'm concerned it is.
I live an hour from NYC and can say the same. No one's safety is guaranteed unless you live in a cocoon...that said, it would be a shame to miss out on an awesome experience because of fear....just got back from Cancun today and felt as safe as if I was in the states....
