Music ain't a crime... yet

City Council may or may not figure out if it should be, though.

The New Orleans City Council instructed the City Planning Commission on Thursday to study the city’s current laws and “existing ambiguities” on outdoor live music and entertainment, and to suggest necessary amendments to local law.

The motion, passed unanimously, comes months after city officials announced that live outdoor entertainment was no longer allowed at any business in the city without a special permit. The change came although no new laws or regulations were passed.

The "announced" change in policy referred to here happened when Safety and Permits decided that a zoning regulation that requires music venues to close their windows and doors during live music performances must mean that all outdoor music is prohibited by default. 

The ambiguity city council is trying to resolve is deliberate, though.  

The interpretation does not appear on a list of Safety and Permits interpretations listed on the city’s website. The department’s director, Zachary Smith, told The Lens last year that interpretations can be less formal, including emails and even verbal communications. When The Lens asked him to point to where and when this interpretation was introduced, he could not.

“We believe we’ve made a decision. Whether it’s verbal or in writing, it’s something we don’t have a specific copy of it,” he said in August.

With no written policy to refer to, it makes decisions by the department more difficult to challenge. The reasoning isn't formal. It's just kind of out there; not something you can just find by opening a door or window, for example.

Anyway now we have to have a study. Then we'll have to have a law change. Eventually they'll probably just codify the policy as currently iterated. You know, because "balance" or whatever.

Palmer said that the study was vital considering rapid changes happening in New Orleans.

“I believe we are at an inflection point in this city,” she said. “We have seen an increased influx of different development pressures, population shifts, some by choice and others not.”

Councilman Jay Banks held a similar sentiment.

“The magic of New Orleans is its culture,” he said. “This study will give us the information necessary to balance the needs of the new developments and new residents and all of the other stuff that’s happening, but not losing sight of what makes New Orleans New Orleans.”

We need to kill the term "culture bearer"

I cringe every time I see it used. A "culture bearer" is not some separate class of person.  We're all culture bearers. All of us here participating in society together, whether we like it or not, are creating a culture together. Right now it's not a particularly healthy culture. In part this is because of our failure to understand what is happening and to whom. What's happening in Treme is a crime. But it's not just something happening to "culture bearers." It's happening to all of us.

Like the second lines that pass through the neighborhood, those who used to call Tremé home say the culture has become transient. Leaving it with no sense of community.

“All the juice, or the oxygen rather, has been sucked out of the room,” says Al Jackson, owner of the Tremé Petit Jazz Museum. “The culture, oxygen, the children, the raison d’etre that we once woke up in the morning and lived for. It’s gone.”

Jazz Vocalist John Boutté says the community was effervescent. You could hear kids playing and laughing, you’d see people talking on the steps and everyone said hello.
Today, Boutté believes he’ll never see that part of Tremé again.

“The folks aren’t there anymore and unless you bring those people back, you’ll never have that part of Tremé again,” Boutté said.

What's happened to Treme is a crime of capitalism. It is the same crime that is happening to every neighborhood to some degree. It is the same crime that is happening to most cities.  Land is hoarded by real estate speculators. Housing prices and rents are artificially inflated. Wages and benefits are stagnant for most working class people so they can no longer keep up with the escalating cost of living. People take on second jobs or part time jobs or jobs where schedules are unpredictable so their time for leisure (or "creative labor" if you prefer the more commodified term) is limited. 

Meanwhile, the aforesaid real estate speculation encourages the city to crack down on institutions and mores that might disrupt profits such as substandard lawn maintenance, corner bars, and outdoor musical performance. So not only is time for creative leisure reduced but so are the physical spaces where it formerly flourished are also taken away. Those that remain are under increasingly intrusive police surveillance which further intrudes on our social space to think and act creatively.  These are sinister processes meant to commodify basic human freedom.  Everyone has the right to be creative. Everyone has the right to spend their leisure time appreciating or conversing with, the fruits of that creativity. It is our collective creative leisure, the act of creating but also just enjoying what others create that generates authentic "creative culture." 

Despite what the oligarchs who control the extractive tourism economy would have us believe, that isn't something they can put that in a bottle and sell in a shop. They can't manufacture it at New Orleans & Co. no matter how much public money the city dumps into their hands. "Culture bearer" is a term they encourage, though, because it conjures a specific product they're already primed to profit from. It isolates a bland branded and frozen version of New Orleans Culture and limits it to something they can control.

We all bear the culture. It is ours to share, to replicate, to elaborate on, and, most crucially, to evolve. But we can't do that when the marketers, hoteliers, land speculators and the homeowners association product who is currently our mayor conspire to steal what we've already created and deny our right to continue as before.  That's what's happened to Treme. And it's going to keep happening until we recognize that a threat against a "culture bearer" is a threat against us all.  A good way to start is to dispense with using that term at all anymore. 

So anyway, who was fire bombed?

Any follow-up on this yet? Seems a little weird that we don't have any names of the affected property owners in this story.

NEW ORLEANS — Someone set two vehicles on fire in a Lakeview neighborhood last week in an explosive moment caught on camera.  The man fires what appears to be a flare at one of the cars, soaked in gasoline, blowing it and another nearby vehicle up. According to neighbors, it happened around 2:15 a.m. on July 29.

Home security video shows a pair of SUVs suddenly burst into flames, followed by a series of small explosions. Neighbor Quinn Eagan heard a loud boom, ran out of his house and found the vehicles on fire. "I grabbed the neighbors garden hose over here and just started trying to put it out and then when the thing started exploding, I hid behind the tree over here and kept spraying and just realized it’s futile," Eagan said.

That's "neighbor, Quinn Eagan" so we have to assume it wasn't actually his cars on fire.  Whose cars are these?  The reason we ask is because when this, or an incident like it, has happened in the past (and it has happened, repeatedly) the target's name has been of some note.

For example, in 2014.

An apparent firebombing ignited a pair of early morning blazes Thursday in Uptown New Orleans, incinerating three vehicles and scorching a house in a startling scene that resembled a war zone. Federal law enforcement officials said they were investigating whether Mario Zervigon, a well-known political fundraiser, had been specifically targeted in the attack. 

Prior to that in 2009,

Talking Points Memo tonight reports that the car belonging to Brian Welsh, aide to putative/possible Senate candidate Stormy Daniels, did not "explode," as had been reported earlier, but was simply a car fire:Brian Welsh's story isn't quite adding up. He keeps describing the incident as an "explosion" that lifted the car's roof five stories in the air -- which differs from what the New Orleans Fire Department has told us.

"It was a fire. The car didn't explode," said Public Information Officer Jonathan Pajeaud. An arson investigation is underway and foul play hasn't been ruled out. But, Pajeaud said, Welsh told firefighters he'd recently gotten electrical work done on his 1996 Audi, and investigators are also looking into that as a possible cause.

You can see from that description that not everybody believed Welsh's story at the time.  I was among those non-believers, in fact.  But I'm less certain about that now.

There was also this in 1997.

When (Attorney Stuart) Smith tried to stop the city from issuing a music license to an outdoor bar around the corner from his 5,000-square-foot home, Molotov cocktails scorched his Mercedes-Benz and rained down on his roof and into his courtyard. His home was not badly damaged.

The bar's owner, George Mellen Jr., and an associate, Richard Jones, pleaded guilty to conspiring to plant firebombs.

Now, a lot of people don't care for Stuart Smith, or for the continuing cause of shutting down live music venues in New Orleans. But most of us tend to frown on fire bombing as a go-to political tactic... despite its apparently frequent use.

Which brings us back to this Lakeview incident which we can't help but notice happened really close to qualifying week for the October statewide elections.  Whose cars were those, again?

Times change, or do they?

Councilwoman Cantrell January 2014

New Orleans City Council canceled today's Housing and Human Needs committee meeting. * That didn't stop a massive crowd, led by a wailing brass band and Glen David Andrews, from blasting inside City Hall. District B councilwoman LaToya Cantrell second lined with the group into City Council chambers, where she handed them the mic and held an open forum.

Mayor Cantrell's Safety and Permits Department 2019

City Planning Staff says they are proposing a citywide prohibition to outdoor live entertainment to bring it in line with the determination of Safety and Permits, but it is not a "significant policy change".

— MaCCNO (@musicculture504) August 13, 2019

  


Actually we should be clear just how insulting they are being about this.

New Orleans' Department of Safety and Permits has taken the position that outdoor live music and entertainment is not allowed in conjunction with ANY business in the city without a special event permit, though existing businesses with outdoor live music may be grandfathered in.

The department has determined this because one of the use standards of live entertainment says doors and windows must be closed during performances. There are no doors and windows to close outdoors, therefore no live entertainment can be held without a special event permit.

Yeah but this is the same authoritarian mayor who shrieked "that's illegal!" rather than answer legitimate questions about why the public wasn't informed about her virtual speed traps this spring so none of this should surprise anybody.  In fact we thought she got far too much credit in 2014 for making sure she was on TV giving the mic to the protesters when 1) the ordinance in question had already been withdrawn and 2) Cantrell didn't take a public position on it even then.  There has never been a time when she wasn't just a total fraud.

*No that Advocate link doesn't work. The Daily Georges crew promised they would resolve their archiving issues within a week of the papers officially merging. That hasn't happened.

Offbeat has a noise complaint

Yes I know this is mostly a Torres story but here is the LOL.

Torres is not the only one upset about the noise Vaso generates. The club has become a headache for nearby businesses, including the local music scene publication. At its offices nearby, publisher Jan Ramsey said working on the weekends can be problematic when Vaso opens at 11 a.m. and keeps doors open, blasting music into the street.

While Ramsey said she considers herself a champion of musicians' rights and is sympathetic to the plight of artists affected by the eviction, she said Torres has a point about the club’s operating practices. She’s tried to get the club’s management to shut its doors but was told, “If we have to shut the doors, we might as well not even be open,” Ramsey said.

You never know who is a NIMBY until the thing comes to their own BY, I guess. 

Fight contraband with contraband

Here's a Gambit article about the city health department's "informational" campaign about noise ordinance. If you're just now tuning in to the noise ordinance saga, you might not know that this is a years-in-the-making political dispute featuring bad actors on several sides. Sometimes it looks like a fight between musicians and prudish property owners.  Other times it can seem like Big Tourism vs neighborhoods. And still other times it is "Nolier Than Thou" culture vs. Gentrification. 

We all like music and "culture bearers" and stuff. But the reason it's on the city agenda, though, is because there are wealthy people with lawyers pressing against each other. Given all of this, the Gambit article lends the city's bullcrap line about "health education" more credibility than it deserves.

Still there's one clever quote in there from this guy.

On a recent Tuesday, a fresh-faced young man in a New Orleans Health Department polo shirt made his rounds on an outreach tour of the downriver end of Decatur Street. Along the way, he spent a few minutes chatting amiably with a 50-something saxophonist as a jazz quintet set up in The Market Cafe.

The saxophonist declined to take a proffered pair of earplugs. "The best earplugs for a musician? Cigarette butts. You break off the filters from a cigarette and put 'em in your ears," he informed the inspector, who jotted down notes.

fter about 10 minutes of civil conversation — including about 30 seconds during which the inspector held out a Sound Check information card that the musician pointedly made no effort to take — the Sound Check crew moved down Decatur Street.

After the inspectors left, it was clear — despite the genial chat — the musician (who declined to give his name, saying he didn't want any trouble from the city) was not convinced of the sincerity of the city's concern that sound was putting him at risk of hearing loss and hypertension.

"Yeah, my ears are hurtin'," he rasped, pulling a mouthpiece from a purple Crown Royal bag. "From listening to all this bullshit.

Cigarettes, because they are an actual health hazard, are harder to come by in New Orleans's music venues these days.  

New New Orleans

Live music is out. Small plates are in.

It might seem like Mimi's, 2601 Royal St., gave up more than it received, its attorney Justin Schmidt said. But since the bar was first sued in Civil District Court in April 2013, Dykes revamped her business model, converting the upstairs space where bands and DJs played into more of a restaurant than a live music venue.

"Where before she depended on having live shows to draw people in there, she's actually getting more customers now without the live entertainment on a regular basis," Schmidt said. "To that extent, she really wasn't giving anything up. So this seemed like a no-brainer so far as a bargaining chip to get out of this whole thing."

More importantly, Dykes no longer has to operate under the strict sound restrictions the court imposed as a result of the lawsuit or fear that she could be shut down at any moment.

Neighborhood Watch

Well now we know who will enforce the smoking ban. Guess what, it is you.

People can file complaints against businesses ignoring the new smoking ban by filling out a complaint form or calling the city's non-emergency 311 hotline.

After receiving a second complaint, the city's health department will conduct a site visit and "provide educational materials and encourage compliance."

The proposed regulations don't spell out what would happen after additional violations.

The city encourages people filing complaints to include date- and time-stamped photographs documenting illegal smoking.

MARGE SIMPSON: "You know, the courts may not be working any more, but as long as everyone is videotaping everyone else, justice will be done."

This past weekend, a friend on the Parallel Internet recounted a story about Sidney Torres's privatized app cops responding to noise complaints even though that wasn't supposed to be their purpose.

Admittedly: We were making a fair ruckus, dancing in the street on Bourbon. I get why folks might have preferred a bit more peaceful Sunday afternoon in the Quarter after a recently-departed parade. And I can understand why people might complain. But this response shocked me. The point of the app, as I understand it, is to help prevent crime. Within a week or two of launching, it seems like it's already evolved to a NIMBY-ish alert. We weren't asked to simply turn it down - we were ordered to turn it nearly off and to move on towards Esplanade and thus leave the area.

This happened while there were hundreds, perhaps thousands of people dispersing throughout the Quarter as afternoon turned to evening. The same Quarter that has seen the sickening rates of muggings, shootings, violent crime, vandalism, etc. that supposedly sparked the creation of Torres' force. One would hope / think / EXPECT that these Polaris cruisers would have a lot more important things to do, like trying to protect and serve all of the other people. Particularly if this is a program that the City might fund in a few months.

According to a report on WWL, Bob Simms, chairman of the French Quarter Management District Security Task Force, said "We are not having them do quality of life type things because you can tie yourself up with people urinating on the sidewalk and things like that," Simms said. "These are meant to be for real crimes."

The "real crime" is unsanctioned dancing on Bourbon Street after a parade, obviously. This is only the beginning.

Profound vibrations

I thought the new streetcar line stopped before it got to the Healing Center. In any case, the people down there are very attuned to the vibes.

The headquarters of the Vieux Carre Property Owners, Residents and Associates at 816 N. Rampart has been experiencing “profound vibrations” during the construction, and on at least one occasion vibrations were so bad that equipment was visibly shaking in the office, Meg Lousteau, executive director of the organization, told the Vieux Carre Commission last week.

“We are in the block where everything began, so everything that’s happened in our block will happen to all the other blocks in the Quarter, Marigny and Treme as the work moves down the line,” Lousteau said.

But, really, there's no story here.  Nothing is reported damaged. No buildings are collapsing or anything.  Some people got a little nervous when they heard a noise, basically.   But that's an issue for another time. 

Instrument

Nadine Ramsey is reintroducing the noise ordinance.

As written, Ramsey's ordinance leaves enforcement under the New Orlean Health Department and New Orleans Police Department (rather than hand it over completely to the health department, which Palmer had proposed). Both departments would be responsible for noise monitoring, reviewing permits and handing out violations.

Ramsey's ordinance also does not remove the current law's curfew in place for street musicians, which Palmer and others called unconstitutional, as it is not equally applied to all people making noise after a certain time. Last year, City Attorney Sharonda Williams said that the city cannot and will not enforce the curfew — though it still remains on the books, along with the rest of the 60-year-old noise ordinance.

As The New Orleans Advocate's Jeff Adelson reported earlier this year, the city hired a new sound specialist following outgoing consultant David Woolworth, who wrote an extensive report with recommendations to the City Council and had suggested its rules and sound limits were too restrictive and difficult to enforce. The new consultant, Monica Hammer, has a background in noise pollution and its impacts on public health (compared to Woolworth's background in music) and is working with the city's health department to "inform residents about the health effects of noise and ways they can protect themselves" along with training and department procedures in accordance with the current laws and forthcoming noise ordinance.

The change in consultants was concerning although it doesn't have to mean anything.  And, if you read the rest of that Gambit article, you'll see that the mayor's office and MACCNO oppose the curfew and favor taking NOPD out of the enforcement picture.  So the ordinance Ramsey introduced this week will look different from whatever is eventually passed, whenever that happens. She even says as much here.

"I am introducing this instrument for the purpose of initiating a thorough public debate on this important issue in my district," Ramsey wrote in a statement to Gambit. "With a couple of important exceptions, the ordinance introduced yesterday, like the ordinance considered in April of last year by my predecessor, only affects the Vieux Carre Entertainment (VCE) and Vieux Carre Entertainment-1 (VCE-1) zoning districts. I am not necessarily committed to everything being proposed by this ordinance and intend to ensure that this issue is fully and publicly vetted by all interested parties."

The word choice is cute, though.  Did she do that on purpose? 

Here comes the noise crackdown

The city hired the noise consultant they expect to be the harshest.

Hammer’s hiring would be one of the first steps in the process of creating an office that would deal with environmental health and noise issues.

Hammer’s proposal came out on top against a competing offer from David Woolworth, who served as the council’s expert on sound issues during the debate over a proposed ordinance to tighten regulation on sound levels at bars and nightclubs.

Those looking for stricter noise regulations largely saw Woolworth as being in the opposing camp, and on several occasions he argued that the proposed rules would be too restrictive.

During Thursday’s evaluation session, committee members praised Woolworth’s knowledge of the city and his ability to research the issues, but they said his proposal was focused on the city’s schools and not issues in the French Quarter and Marigny, two hot spots of tension over sound issues.

Hammer, who does not live in New Orleans, got high marks for her background in environmental health and her previous experience dealing with sound issues in Chicago.

"New" New Orleans

Wall Street Journal on the New Orleans noise wars.

Now, as a yet undefined “new” New Orleans rubs up against whatever is left of the old one, brass bands have been shut down on their customary street corners. Music clubs have increasingly been hit with lawsuits and visited by the police responding to phoned-in complaints. A revival of rarely enforced ordinances has met a fresh groundswell of activism. All this has happened in the context of swift gentrification of neighborhoods such as Tremé, long a hothouse for indigenous culture.

In any city, gentrification raises questions: What happens when those who build upon cultural cachet don’t want that culture next door? But even long-standing residents of the city’s historic neighborhoods have had a sometimes uneasy coexistence with the city’s largely organic culture, and their legitimate quality-of-life expectations (noise, crowds, and such) beg for clear and enforceable rules. Yet in New Orleans such concerns are underscored by an exceptional truth—a functional jazz culture that is, for many, elemental to daily life and social cohesion.

Yeah.. I guess.  But I wish we could talk about this more in terms of pure right and wrong rather than in terms of what is or isn't "authentic NOLA" that tourists expect to see.  Street music and late hours should be desirable elements of city life in general, shouldn't they? 

Also, "long a hothouse for indigenous culture."  Ugh, what does that even mean?  Stop writing  about New Orleans like it's some sort of cartoon.  People live here.. or at least they used to before the rent got too damn high.  People like to have a good and loose time while they're living.  Don't they like that everywhere?

The Year Of Enforcement

Jackson Square in 2008. The dividing "armrests" on the benches are innovations introduced by former Councilwoman Jackie Clarkson. They are intended to prevent homeless people from sleeping there. Somehow they manage anyway.

This quote is from Councilmember Cantrell speaking at Monday's Year End municipal press conference hosted by the Mayor and every other public official who wanted to speechify for no particular reason. 

Cantrell: "I've said on the dais, 2015 is the year of enforcement, on every level." Crime, code enforcement, parking, short-term rentals etc
— Charles Maldonado (@CMaldonadoLens) December 29, 2014

I used to think Stacy Head was the new Jackie Clarkson but that's probably an out of date assessment considering how far to the right the entirety of city government has moved in recent years.  Stacy is now Peggy Wilson.  Latoya is the new Jackie.

If 2015 is going to be The Year Of Enforcement, Cantrell has already gotten a head start on that in 2014. This year she worked hard at shooing homeless people off of the streets under the Calliope overpass and shooing some of the fun off of the streets during Carnival.

She also, sort of mysteriously, allowed the demolition of one property under strange circumstances having to do with a faulty enforcement mechanism. Not sure whatever came of that. But the message at the time was, if you've got the money, we'll let you do whatever you want.

Anyway, the fact that she mentions "short term rentals" is interesting.  Most likely what she means is that they're going to be made more widely legal, though.

She doesn't mention the noise ordinance.  But I guess, since we're already putting bar employees in jail over it, 2015 can't really get much more enforcey than that.


Note: Yes, everyone involved in that Jax noise enforcement story seems pretty terrible for one reason or another.  But it's the jail for noise violations bit that really stands out.  Especially given the location. Tonight there will be a party there which will probably garner some attention.  I hope it doesn't get too loud..

A team of shushers

The city is trying to restart its plan for noise ordinance enforcement.. which we mustn't call enforcement even though they will be sending people out to tell you you are too loud.

The request is looking for a consultant to design the "Environmental Health Noise/Sound Program" and train a team to focus on "educating the community on the public health implications around excessive" sound and the rules and regulations in the noise ordinance.

The deadline for applications is Oct. 31.

I know you're thinking, why just send some librarians around town to shush everybody.  But you probably haven't been to a library lately. They are noisy places staffed by very loud people.

So who are they gonna hire?

At the same time, the health department is looking to hire a director for the still-to-be created program who will then hire people to make up the educational and enforcement team. The team will be tasked with enforcing the existing sound rules after a proposal for a new ordinance failed in the spring.

The total cost of the project is $250,000 and will come from the French Market Corporation's budget. Salaries will be determined by the price of the accepted bid.

Whoops, they said they're gonna enforce something. Although we don't know how many of them are gonna do that.  Maybe just one person... paid $250,000 to go around asking people to keep it down.  I think I'll send in that proposal.

Pretty good racket

As long as there's somebody threatening legal action over sound ordinance violations, somebody's gonna have to gather some evidence.

What had been Buffa’s bathrooms are now just studs and pipes as crews work to build additional soundproofing onto the bar’s lakeside wall, which faces Torres’ house. While renovating those bathrooms, it became clear that there previously had been nothing to muffle the sound before it hit the metal sides of the building, Rogers said.

That configuration could have amplified the vibrations coming from live performers, he said. To prevent that, workers are installing new walls of gypsum and plywood inside the building that will be separated from the exterior wall by a dead zone to further dampen the noise, he said.

While still incomplete, those efforts have already paid off, Rogers said. Earlier this month, the bar hired Dave Woolworth, an acoustics expert who works as a consultant for the city, to take readings from Torres’ property as the Royal Rounders played at Buffa’s. That test, conducted with Torres’ permission, saw the band play normally before steadily amping up the volume, eventually breaching the bar’s self-imposed limit on how loudly bands can play — roughly 90 decibels, enough to force patrons to shout to be heard — 41 times, Rogers said.

Must be the only game in town.  

"Museum quality"

Oh well,

During the Funky 544 trial, the defendants' expert witness on sound, Eric Zwerling, testified that he took sound measurements inside Yokum's house and that music from the club could not be heard when the air-conditioner was turned on and was "inaudible to somewhat audible" when it was turned off.

The plaintiffs' sound expert, Arno Bommer, did not take measurements inside the house and their attorney didn't produce any evidence that Funky 544 had been cited by the city for noise violations, Halpern said.

There are so many other sources of sound in the 700 block of Toulouse Street including street musicians, second lines, traffic, car stereos, large crowds and dozens of other bars and nightclubs that it is impossible to blame one business and ask it to pay millions of dollars in damages, Halpern said.

"Our guys did everything they could to be good neighbors and they do operate in an entertainment district," he said. "(Yokum and Anderson) live just 170 steps from Bourbon Street. We suggested they do something to their house to mitigate the noise but they said they want it to remain museum quality."

I'm all for maintaining the French Quarter as a liveable neighborhood.  I'm also certain these guys can afford to work with their neighbors and take steps to make their living situation commensurate with the realities of that neighborhood. 

But they would prefer to live in a museum.

New Orleans is famous the world over for its property values

Can't let anything take precedence over the resale value of a piece of property.

"There's no way in the world that I can ever sell my house or much less even live in my house with the way it is right now," said Torres, who used to own SDT Waste & Debris Services and recently opened a resort in the Bahamas called the Cove. "When you go in the backyard, it sounds like you're at a club."

The lawsuit claims that the live music at Buffa's has damaged Torres' property value at 1011 Esplanade Ave. and caused significant pain and suffering. It also claims that the city wrongfully issued the bar a live music permit. It calls for an injunction to stop the performances and requires the owners to regularly measure the sound levels to ensure they are not exceeding the legal limit.

What is the sound of lemony fresheness?

Looks like another round of noise crackdowns is in the works.

Mimi's in the Marigny — one of the central venues in the ongoing conversation about music permitting and noise ordinances — has suspended its live music schedule. As first reported this afternoon on NOLA.com, Mimi's music programming is taking a brief hiatus, though staff there haven't confirmed why.

Meanwhile, Buffa's Bar & Restaurant announced on its Facebook today that the watering hole and entertainment spot now faces a lawsuit from 1011 Esplanade Avenue Inc., alleging that it has violated the city's noise ordinance. The post also says the suit challenges Buffa's mayoralty permit allowing live music, though the venue has been a longtime fixture for music in the neighborhood.

Gambit further reports that "1011 Esplanade Avenue" belongs to Sidney Torres who the Buffa's owners say was something of a regular.. or at least a customer.  So what gives?  

Hustlin'

The New Orleans poor have always lived by the hustle, eking out inadequate wages and suffering chronic underemployment with off-the-books make­shifts in the underground economy. -- Lawrence N.Powell



It's "Clean Zone" season out by the Fair Grounds.

Another Jazz Fest, another stern warning from City Hall for local entrepreneurs looking to cash in by selling parking spots, souvenirs or other goods.

Over the past few years, Mayor Mitch Landrieu’s administration has taken a strict approach during the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival, enforcing laws that say anyone wanting to operate a parking lot on commercially zoned property must get a permit.

A city-issued reminder this week reiterated that position and also warned that police will be “aggressively” enforcing rules against transient vendors selling goods from cars or trucks within the festival’s “clean zone,” a wedge of territory bounded by Florida Avenue, North Broad Street, Esplanade Avenue and Bayou St. John. Signs have appeared near the Fair Grounds reminding would-be hawkers about the rules.

If you read NOLA.com on a regular basis, you'd get the impression that "Entrepreneur Week" lasts for at least six months out of the year.  It must finally be over.  This city of start-ups sure does enjoy sending mixed signals.

As Mominem notes in a comment to a previous post, New Orleans has a reputation for flexibility regarding "gray market" activity. Informal vendors have sold homemade art, crafts, food, hucklebucks, etc. out of their own homes or carts for decades while facing occasional but often light official restriction.

Long before the laws governing gourmet food trucks became a newsworthy controversy, mobile food vendors like this one were frequently found at or near the city's outdoor festivals, second lines, or Mardi Gras parades.



At Mardi Gras 2006, the pirate seen here acquired her bottle of pink wine from the smugglers pictured just over her shoulder in the background.



From time to time there are efforts to rein some of this stuff in.

Here are some guys being cited for unlicensed beverage sales outside of the Superdome last year in accordance with a stepped up enforcement effort.



I took a bike ride through the "Clean Zone" Sunday afternoon.  There were the usual offerings of "Ice Cold Water One Dollar" available but not much other street vending in evidence.  I did happen upon a "for display purposes only" set up of handicraft handbags.  Also there was a guy with a cart full of goofy political paraphernalia including even a "Cliven Bundy for President" T-Shirt.  It's hard to imagine much of that was selling but you never know.



Anyway, so in keeping with the entrepreneurial spirit that makes our city so great, I'm pitching some ideas for local TV production.  Everyone knows the Louisiana film tax credit is the surest get-rich-quick scheme going around here these days.. if you can stay out of jail, that is. Or until the interstate grifting competition finally catches up with Louisiana which could start happening any day now.

In the meantime we need to get these ideas up and available for immediate financing.

1) Name That Decibel.  Contestants walk the first eight blocks of Bourbon Street and guess the loudness at which they are hearing various house bands perform Don't Stop Believin' along the way.  Hosted by Drew Ward.

2) Amazing Race Uptown Teams have to perform a variety of tasks that require them to traverse the many Uptown construction zones. The degree of difficulty increases as afternoon thunderstorms begin to flood the side street detours.

Points may be awarded for ingenuity. For example last weekend our familiar four year old neighborhood sinkhole was finally filled in.



As you can probably tell, this wasn't accomplished through any official city agency. Instead, in keeping with the NOLA hustlin' tradition of improvisation, a free acting community fellow arrived and shoveled dirt into it from the back of an El Camino.



I'm not sure what's next for the sinkhole.  I've thought about putting up a Maypole there but Menckles  has already planted some sunflower seeds so we'll have to wait to see if those come in before anything else happens.

3) Project Fairgrounds Tim Gunn stands at the gate and scrutinizes Jazzfest attendees' outfits for controversial themes.

On Saturday (April 26), Greenpeace flew a banner over the New Orleans Jazz Fest with a message aimed at Shell, the festival's sponsor: "Love Jazz Fest; Hate Oil Spills." For 30 minutes, until several NOPD officers escorted the Greenpeace members out, the protest took place inside the gates.

Extra points deducted for protesters who don't even take the time to match their complaint to the venue.

The group passed out paper fans and post cards criticizing Shell's efforts to drill in the arctic. Two of them held Jazz Fest-style poles that featured half a polar bear's face and half of Shell's logo with a devil's horn added.

A dying Louisiana coastline and its inhabitants  might find that a little tacky.

Any contestant singled out by Gunn will be given a sun hat, Hawaiian shirt, and sandals to wear for the rest of the day.

4) Park That Bike Simple concept.  Much harder than you may think, though.



So those are my TV hustles. If you're in for financing any of these let me know and I'll get you in touch with my agent Kevin Houser.

Jazzfest kicks off at City Hall

They're voting on the noise ordinance today. Pretty sure there's no show scheduled this time around but you never know.