Sentri Pass - Otay Mesa

Crossed the border at Otay and both of us have our Sentri Pass. Officer was old and cranky as hell and said we had too much stuff to be using the Sentri lane. I ask what constitutes "too much stuff"? We had 2 coolers, box of food, fishing gear, poles, bags, etc. inside the SUV with the back seats folded down.

Of course I can't keep my mouth shut complaining about how much I paid, back ground checks, we are trusted traveler's etc., so we ended up in secondary with a note on our windshield.

I know the note said "send 'em around the x-ray 3 times, then screw with them as much as you want. The guy in secondary gave us the same line - boy you got a lot of stuff and Sentri is not for you guys. I told him there is nothing written that says I can't do this and during my interview I told them why I was getting the pass.

Anyway the wait in the line + secondary was 1 hour. Still better than the 3 - 4 hour wait.

You can bet we'll be back.

Quote:

Originally posted by bajajurel Crossed the border at Otay and both of us have our Sentri Pass. Officer was old and cranky as hell and said we had too much stuff to be using the Sentri lane. I ask what constitutes "too much stuff"? We had 2 coolers, box of food, fishing gear, poles, bags, etc. inside the SUV with the back seats folded down. Of course I can't keep my mouth shut complaining about how much I paid, back ground checks, we are trusted traveler's etc., so we ended up in secondary with a note on our windshield. I know the note said "send 'em around the x-ray 3 times, then screw with them as much as you want. The guy in secondary gave us the same line - boy you got a lot of stuff and Sentri is not for you guys. I told him there is nothing written that says I can't do this and during my interview I told them why I was getting the pass. Anyway the wait in the line + secondary was 1 hour. Still better than the 3 - 4 hour wait. You can bet we'll be back.

This summer we took a trip from San Felipe over the hill to Ensenada and then up through TJ to San Diego.

We also have SENTRI, but the day we decided to cross, the first time, I might add, the bus drivers were on strike and they closed the SENTRI entry. We had to go back and enter into the normal lane and then cut into the SENTRI down the way.

It took us an hour to get to the crossing booth and the agent told me I was in luck and was getting secondary today.

Now, I am crapping my knappys. We loaded up on Tequila to take to some friends in the states. We had about 8 bottles between the 2 of us.

The first thing they did was send us through Xray. This was also a first for me.

Then we parked and waited and waited and waited. About one more hour. Finally a you kid comes out to examine our vehicle. He opened our cooler and saw 2 bottles of tequila and said nothing. He didn't ask how many bottles or anything.

He then started tapping and banging on my truck and checking underneath with a mirror. I asked him if he had any concerns about working around Xray. He responded that 90% of the time the xray doesn't work.

It took him all of 5 minutes to give us the once over and we were on our way.

Skated by, this time

The same guy???