Zona Norte, Tijuana

Zona Norte is an official neighborhood as well as a red light district located in Tijuana, Mexico. It is among the largest red-light districts in North America known for its brothels, which present themselves in public as strip clubs and bars, similar to gentlemen's clubs in the United States. Many bars and strip clubs in Tijuana's red light district in which women are the feature entertainment also operate as brothels, which offer attached hotel rooms for short intervals of time. Many other bars, styled "lady bars", function as less explicit social clubs where prostitutes and nude sex shows are not accommodated on site, but "lady drinks" are offered at elevated prices, and freelance prostitutes look for clients. These compare in most respects to the hostess bars in Japan.The red light district in Tijuana is also known for highly commercialized street prostitution, particularly behind the main strip clubs on Calle Coahuilla, in a large-high traffic alley named "Primer Callejon Coahuila". Illicit drug sales are also common to the red light district, but they occur largely out of the public eye. Heroin use and theft, not common elsewhere in Mexico, are rampant here. Due to its proximity to San Diego, California, it is frequented by US citizens as well as locals. The district is also known as La Coahuila for the name of the primary avenue that runs through it.LocationZona Norte is bordered by Downtown Tijuana (Zona Centro) on the south, Zona Río on the east, San Diego and the Mexico–United States border on the north, and colonia Castillo on the west. Politically, the Zona Norte neighborhood is part of the Delegación Centro (Central Borough). Tijuana's red light district itself, encompasses just a couple of blocks within Zona Norte.