Maritime law

Bayou St. John during Greek Festival 2008

Apparently there are Uptown Ladies^TM in Mid City too.

Most importantly, Lichtfuss says, the city should reduce the number of festivals being held on the bayou, from the summer boat races to Praise Fest NOLA, a three-day gospel festival that attracted as many as 50 gospel artists and up to 5,000 attendees in 2013, its third year. As many as 35,000 people at a time come to other festivals, like the longstanding Bayou Boogaloo.

“When you’re going to make festival grounds on property across from gorgeous historic homes, I do think the neighborhood should have something to say about that,” Lichtfuss says. “These are our homes along the bayou. We’re the ones who are affected by everything going on.”

Lichtfuss wants residents to come up with ideas about how to restrict use of the bayou and present them to the New Orleans City Council, in hopes of getting stricter zoning laws established for the waterway — at least for the parameters from where Carrollton Avenue meets Wisner Boulevard to the end of the bayou at Lafitte Street.

Ultimately, Lichtfuss says, she’d like to see the bayou be more like Lakeview, and have special zoning designation preventing large-scale events and other activities.

As usual, the owners of nearby "gorgeous historic homes" have more important things to say about what happens in the public spaces than the public does. 

Probably this should be made part of the noise ordinance debate. Canoes gently rippling over placid bayou waters are sure to generate some nuisance decibels. We've got to get these monsters off of the bayou so we can go back to quietly dumping stolen cars and dead bodies there.

At least no one is trying to throw biodegradable paper anywhere for fun.  That is apparently still going to be a no-no.

A proposed ban on tossing open rolls of toilet paper during Mardi Gras parades in New Orleans has been dropped for now, but some sort of regulation isn't out of the question for Carnival 2015, according to Councilwoman LaToya Cantrell, who is sponsoring a new set of rules for parades.

Cantrell said in an email that the toilet-paper ban was initially proposed in response to complaints from the Department of Sanitation and clean-up crews. However, she said, "Toilet paper wasn't a top safety issue, so we took it off the table ... we did not want the Krewe of Tucks to take a financial loss this Carnival season, having purchased their 2014 throws. It has been voiced as a concern in terms of the mess and cleanup, so we will work with the Department of Sanitation and the Krewe of Tucks to hopefully come to a resolution for next year. Representatives from the administration and the Tucks are amenable to future discussions."

When interviewed by WWLTV last week, Cantrell didn't say anything about complaints from Sanitation.  Instead she said the T-P ban was  "something that came up from the community." Not sure which "community"  she listens to. I continue to suspect that there are some Uptowners who don't want the T-P rolls being thrown near their "gorgeous historic homes." In any case they don't make a lot of sense.

It may be time to think about scrapping this Carnival ordinance altogether. Already it's become less about helping people enjoy Carnival and more about telling them what they can't do.