Edit: Mark this post. I have more coming up on how City Council is seriously considering an increase in the permit fee for city-wide Carnival parades starting the 2009 season and are trying to add a fee for each float (tandems would count as two separate floats). Why are we penalized for being Mardi Gras, that which thousands upon thousands flock to this city to see?
Salon.com: Band On The Run In New Orleans
Sgt. Ronald Dassel of the New Orleans Police Department was quoted in the Times-Picayune saying, “We don’t change laws for neighborhoods.” But in fact the city does and always has. Special legislation protects the tourist-rich French Quarter, for example. The mostly white Mardi Gras carnival parades command a long list of specific ordinances (including much lower permit fees than for second lines). And a recent judge’s order, which some critics consider unconstitutional, delineated police arrest and release protocols for municipal offenses specifically by neighborhood — with the Tremé among the neighborhoods subject to the sternest treatment.
As one commenter on this piece says, “People are murdered every day in the Neutral Zone (?), and they act like this for the jazz funerals? Oh wait, the people for the funerals can be shaken down this way.” Nope, there’s no money in murder investigation.
The police department seem sdetermined to alineate the positive forces in the city.
They are tone deaf to Community Support.
The police department seems determined to alienate the positive forces in the city.
They are tone deaf to Community Support.