Cantina fans cry in their beer

ANAHI RAMA, Reuters
Published: Wednesday, January 30

With beers in hand, hundreds of former patrons protested yesterday the closing of Mexico's oldest cantina, where Cuban President Fidel Castro, revolutionary Che Guevara and Mexican leaders all once drank.
Supporters called El Nivel (The Level) a national cultural treasure. The drinking dive, which was handed the first cantina licence in 1855, closed on Jan. 2 after losing a long legal battle against the owners of the building, the National Autonomous University of Mexico.
Demonstrators, many drinking from beer cans, protested outside the padlocked door of the bar, nestled in a side street near where the Aztecs' main temple once stood.
"Today we declare El Nivel a Mexican cultural and drinking heritage site," read a sign they placed on the cantina's door.
"We consider it a place of learning at the university of life," said protester Marco Rascon, reading from a manifesto in defence of the cantina signed by dozens of demonstrators.
Mexico is dotted with cantinas, mostly no-frills bars where tequila and beer dominate the drinks list and hearty traditional food is served.
The protesters say they want the university to agree a deal with the owner, Ruben Aguirre, to allow El Nivel to reopen.
Failing that, they will ask Mexico City's government to expropriate the cantina and grant it a permit to continue.
The government and the university have yet to respond.
The cantina was named The Level because authorities used to measure the height of the city's flood waters in the building.

Fuente: The Gazette (Montreal)