Airport - customs LAW and REGULATION

We were WAY OVER in MANY categories and got through with no problems.

The thing to remember is that this was just good luck.

Every country has customs importations rules.

The duty on, "overage liquour", liquour over your allowed amount coming into Canada even by Canadians is 100%. A bottle of Don Julio Blanco with the duty and the 12% tax that would be charged in my home provincial BC liquour store would be $97.44 CAD. Call it a hundred bucks. That is the rule and the law. Pay another 100 bucks or loose the bottle. Hey, but you've brought more lots of times!! You just got away with the infraction and more power to you. A foreigner entering Canada, much like one entering Mexico will have an allotment for personal use.

I ABSOLUTELY agree that the ridiculous level of scrutiny and the INCONSISTENCY of the application is HORRIBLE for tourism but keep in mind customs officials worldwide have perhaps even more power than the police and certainly they have wider discretion to detain you and if provoked or truly suspicious they can even insist on performing a cavity search. This is not hyperbole but regulation.

In measured response to to the Little Guy's thoughtful, on topic, post I will add the information below.

I read of a $100 CAD charge for a laptop though CDMX, so that route while also having seemed better for us MAY not protect you as much as you wish it might. Our AeroMexico-Westjet combination flight through CDMX failed miserably and we then got routed from Vancouver to Calgary where we THEN had to go through American Customs on the way to Los Angeles to eventually go through customs in ZIHUA anyway. We got, 48 hours of unlucky with flights and two minutes lucky with all customs officers.

I KNOW of a much higher fee, even with prolonged negotiation @ SJD, San Jose del Cabo, over an admittedly very expensive underwater camera housing but one brought through trouble free many previous times. Politeness and fluent Spanish and facility and ability to search online while in line, REDUCED the fee on the item but a significant importation, "expense" still occurred. The housing was for use on a Mexican federally licensed expedition in a national marine park but still the, "expense" was required.

Something to note is that the SJD housing and a friend's $100 CAD fee charged here @ ZIH for a second laptop, also brought many times previously, is that customs issued a, "LIFETIME", sort of receipt to allow unlimited entry in the future as long as the receipt was kept.

The policy is HORRIBLE for tourism, that is very clear.