Mexico City Bans Traditional Bullfights for Violence-Free Option | USAEMALL.com

In the biggest bullfighting city in the largest bullfighting country in the world, Mexico City lawmakers overwhelmingly voted on Tuesday to ban traditional bullfighting — a move that was supported by Mexico’s president, Claudia Sheinbaum, but was fiercely opposed by backers of the centuries-old custom.

The legislation, approved by a 61-1 vote, prohibits the injuring or killing of bulls for sport, in or outside of the arenas. It will allow for what proponents call “bullfighting without violence,” in which rules determine how long a bull can be in the ring and limit bullfighters to using only capes.

“My heart always beats for animal welfare,” said Xochitl Bravo Espinosa, a Mexico City legislator who helped spearhead the effort.

But Ms. Bravo Espinosa said that legislators tried to find a balance in which the bullfights could go on, albeit modified, so that people who made a living off the industry could continue working. She pointed to people who sell gear and food around La Plaza México, the largest bullfighting arena in the world, which opened in 1946 in the heart of the city and seats 42,000 people.

Bullfighting proponents denounced the legislation, protesting outside the Mexico City legislature’s building on Tuesday morning.

“This is just the beginning of a fight for our bullfighting,” four bullfighting groups said in a joint statement later in the day.

Raúl Pérez Johnston, a lawyer for Tauromaquia Mexicana, a national bullfighting organization, said in an interview that there were a number of remaining questions about the implementation of the law, which is expected to go into effect in the coming days, and that the group planned to challenge it legally.

In a statement leading up to Tuesday’s vote, La Plaza México said that the proposal to alter bullfighting was “a clear threat against one of the most deeply rooted cultural traditions in our country.” It said the changes “completely distort the essence and go against the heart and origins of this tradition.”

Bullfighting was at the center of a major legal fight over its return to Mexico City just last year. A human rights group successfully convinced a federal judge in 2022 to approve a suspension of bullfights at La Plaza México. But arena officials appealed the decision, and Mexico’s Supreme Court revoked the suspension, paving the way for bullfights to return with much fanfare in January 2024.

Bullfighting, spread by Spain throughout its colonies in Latin America in the 1500s, has faced a mounting, existential crisis over the years.

Despite a steady decline over the decades because of prohibitions and deepening opposition, the practice continues in at least five other countries beside Spain and Mexico: France, Venezuela, Peru, Ecuador and Colombia, where a ban doesn’t begin until 2027.

Mexico’s first recorded bullfight was in 1526, and over 300 bullfighting plazas remain. But since 2013, five of Mexico’s 31 states have prohibited bullfights.

The battle over bullfighting has come to symbolize a larger culture war between tradition and more modern views on animal cruelty.

According to Mexico City’s legislature, 168 bulls and steers were killed at La Plaza México in 2019. Proponents of the tradition have argued that represents a very small percentage of all bulls born in Mexico and that the bullfighting industry creates tens of thousands of jobs in the country.

The new legislation decreed that bullfighters will only be allowed to use the traditional large cape and the smaller red one to lure the bulls. It also determined that individual bull fights last only 15 minutes, with only six such bull fights per event.

Mayor Clara Brugada of Mexico City, who proposed the violence-free option, welcomed Tuesday’s vote with “great happiness.” In recent days, Ms. Sheinbaum said she, too, was in favor of the violence-free bullfights and called them “a very important step.”

Some animal rights groups also applauded the legislation — but argued it hadn’t gone far enough.

“Bloodless bullfighting is just the beginning,” said Animal Heroes, an organization that started a “Mexico Without Bullfighting” campaign six years ago. “We will continue fighting until we achieve its total abolition.”

Ms. Bravo Espinosa, the legislator, said that within seven months, the city government will issue the new bullfighting regulations, with input from all sides, on exactly how the new bull events can be held.