After 15 years, Lara decided it was time to go home. “I didn’t see my family since the day I left, so I decided to go back. But it was tough because I didn’t have any friends (in Mexico) and the system just wasn’t working for me,” he said.
To make ends meet, he schlepped 15km from his hometown in Papalotla to bustling Puebla to peddle tacos on the street once a week. It’s hard to imagine, but it’s a lot easier selling tacos in Singapore than it is in Mexico, where criminal gangs commonly demand a “right-to-operate” or “protection” fee that outstrips a vendor’s daily earnings. The refusal to pay never ends well for the vendor.
The second time Lara was approached by cartel members for “derecho de piso” (the right-to-operate fee) was the last time he made that trek. “There’s no point,” he said. “(The fee) doesn’t even cover my costs. Basically, I would be working for them.”
Lara was working in manual labour when he received a call from his former employers, the owners of New York bar Employees Only, inviting him to be part of their opening team in their first international outpost in Singapore.
“I literally quit that day. I said, ‘So long, you boys, I’m leaving!’” he laughed, drawing an imaginary line towards the door with his index finger. “Whoosh!”
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