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Zatarain's

If you're waiting for the streetcar at Bienville Street and N. Carrollton Avenue in Mid-City, you've got some reading material. Advertisements for Zatarain's Crab Boil are painted in the curb cuts in what seems to be semi-permanent paint — right across the street from a City Park streetcar stop that takes people to Jazz Fest.

We've been here before, and recently. Last week, chalk ads for a software company were stenciled on sidewalks in the French Quarter, upsetting residents and merchants. In 2012, Coca-Cola paid local graffiti artists to lay down Coke logos on French Quarter sidewalks during the Final Four tournament.

Really interested in how this one ends.  As the rest of that Gambit post points out, "bandit sign" advertising on the city sidewalks and public right of ways is prohibited. The Coca-Cola guerrilla marketing violation in 2012 bubbled up into a fairly significant controversy causing the city to take action....  even if that action was merely collecting a fee from Coca-Cola after the fact. 

My gut feeling here is that, just three years later, the mood is more apathetic toward these matters and that the city is actually in on the deal.  Maybe I'm wrong about that but I expect the Mayor's response will be something about how sidewalk ads are really about "resilience and innovation" or something.