Also claims he is a Hollywood producer
Tempest in a sandlot
A Mexican 'portable beach' is stopping traffic in Montreal
But it's also driving local police mad
MIRO CERNETIG
QUEBEC BUREAU CHIEF
Montreal—When it dreamed up the notion of filling a massive glass box with white sand, palm trees and swimsuit models to create a "portable beach" to drive around northern cities, the Mexican government never thought it would need to claim blanket immunity.
But that's what happened in Montreal, says Bob Marier, a Hollywood TV producer hired to truck one of the "portable beaches" around this sun-starved city to promote winter getaways.
"I like to joke my truck now has diplomatic immunity," said Marier, who is driving the vehicle for the Mexico Tourism Board. "The first day, I had a cease-and-desist order from the police. Then this guy came down from the Mexican consulate and waved his diplomatic credentials at the police.
"I'm not sure what he said, but he made the problem go away for me pretty fast," he said. "So it didn't really become a diplomatic incident you'd hear about."
But the police still keep showing up and telling him where to park the beach, er, the truck.
At the moment, two of Montreal's finest ambled up to his white truck, which tends to stick out since it looks like a giant aquarium on wheels — one that happens to be filled with three plastic palm trees, 6,000 kilograms of white sand and three bronzed women wearing bikinis in sub-zero weather.
"You have to turn down the music," one officer ordered Marier, suggesting the salsa beat emanating from the truck was disturbing the peace.
"Maybe you could find another place," added his partner, whose gaze kept roaming toward one of the models waving at him from behind her heated, glass enclosure.
"I can't do that," Marier responded in a friendly but firm manner, dropping coins into two parking meters to ensure he could claim the two spots his truck takes up on rue Ste.-Catherine, Montreal's rough equivalent of Yonge St.
"I had to get up at 6 a.m. to get this spot," he explained. "I can't just give it up now. I won't find another."
Navigating his stretch of beach through Montreal has been decidedly more problematic than doing so in Toronto, Chicago and New York, the three other northern cites that now have the Mexican Tourism Board "portable beaches" driving through their downtowns.
In those cities, the "promo-buses" advertising Mexico's "eternal summer" have been given permits.
Still, complications turn up.
"I've gotten some parking tickets in Toronto, for $40 and $60, when I'm on the road at rush hour," says Jeff Pfeifer, who is driving one of the Mexican beaches around downtown Toronto.
"But they haven't tried to tow me yet. Maybe Toronto's a little more relaxed than Montreal," he mused.
"I think the police really just come by to have an excuse to look at the models. Most people just smile when they see the beach."
Many people, in fact, initially seem to think they are seeing some attempt at performance art, not an advertising gimmick, when they see the glassed-in beach.
And some don't like it, said Marier. One woman was angered by the display, he said, calling the use of women to sell sex and sun offensive.
"She spat on the truck," he said.
Most passersby, however, seem bemused.
"Are they pretending to be animals in a zoo?" asked René Ziegler, who stopped for a few minutes to watch the display before realizing it was what is called "contact advertising."
"It's strange. They sort of seem like fish in a goldfish bowl."
Actually, lizards in a terrarium is more apt.
The sand the models sit on isn't from Mexico, which Marier said would have too many germs, but instead what people buy in pet stores for iguanas.
Like lizards in a northern climate, the models, who are from the Montreal area, also basked under heat lamps to keep warm.
"The sand gets cold," complained Craig Struble, the sole male model with rights to the artificial beach, shivering before he climbed inside and plopped his bronzed body under the plastic palms.
"It's bizarre. But it's a real traffic stopper."
He's right about that.
Yesterday, a group of firefighters repeatedly drove by in their red truck, eventually stopping to turn on the sirens and flash the lights as they waved.
"Oh, look, firemen," said one of the models.
"Let's wave.".