The Music Under the Stars free concert series has always been an event in which many El Pasoans gathered with their friends and family to enjoy a relaxing night of tunes and camaraderie. But for this season, the great powers that be decided to ban alcohol from the event.

Last year and the years before that, the Chamizal National Memorial Park would get so packed during MUTS that it would be hard to find a patch of grass to sit on. The lines to the porta-potties were ridiculously long and the lines to buy a corn in a cup or a funnel cake were equally long. The Bowie High School parking lots were full of vehicles, all the way to the back parking lot by their baseball field.

Back in the ‘good ‘ol days’ finding a parking space was part of the fun. If there were no spaces at Bowie, you’d have to cruise around the area until you found a parking space or paid a shady parking lot (most times just a vacant dirt lot) attendant. Then, the walk to Chamizal was scenic filled with lots of people looking to have a good time – good looking girls, dudes carrying cases of beer or pulling their coolers behind them – and the streets were filled with cars arriving or still looking for a parking space.

Unfortunately, the scene at last Sunday’s first MUTS of the season was the complete opposite. There weren’t tons of cars or people walking towards the green fields of Chamizal. The Bowie parking lots were not packed to the brim, which some might say is a plus. Upon arriving to the park grounds you could immediately sense that this wasn’t the Music Under the Stars that many of us have become accustomed to. There were guard rails along the entrance of the park, and an increased security presence. For what?! In case somebody got too wild on their root beer or became crazed after getting a sugar high from a funnel cake. The attendance was possibly about one-quarter of what it could have been had the event not banned alcohol. News reports are saying that attendance was healthy, but it just wasn’t the same. So it is easy to say, that a dry MUTS is a sad MUTS.

Alcohol was probably banned due to fights or public intoxication offenses. Personally, I have never seen any fights erupt or witnessed any monkey business caused by someone that had a little too much to drink. If anything, the drinking never seemed like an outright problem. In all likelihood, it was probably just a plan to make Music Under the Stars a more family oriented event so toddlers and their siblings can roam more freely, get lost or scrape their little knees. Well they succeeded and sorry to say, attendees looked bored out of their minds as they fiddled with their phones and clutched their sodas. By 9:15 PM, many folks began folding up their chairs and blankets. Even the announcer who came on before the second group of the night asked if people were having fun despite the alcohol ban, the audience response was tepid.

The city of El Paso always finds a way to retain its title of being a city so boring that many will either deal with it and appreciate gems like a pre-prohibition MUTS or just flee the city for greener pastures. This alcohol ban will inevitably deter the younger crowd and will “ensure a safer experience” for the older crowd and the conservative folk. Something the city of El Paso has always been good at. That may not have been their intention, but when you look at a situation like this, you have to wonder who is actually benefiting from such a decision.

You don’t necessarily need alcohol to have a good time.  But, what the powers that be failed to recognize is that attendees, especially the college age crowd, enjoyed MUTS because it was an opportunity to hang out with friends, run into people you hadn’t seen in a while and share a beer, some grub and some laughs. Those times are dead and gone, hopefully temporarily. What do you guys think?

by Alex Aventura

photograph by Raymond M. Segura