Library Chronicles: Mayor Giuliani goes to Bourbon Street

Tuesday, October 27, 2015

Mayor Giuliani goes to Bourbon Street

Shocked SHOCKED that you can find "lewd/immoral acts" there.

Several strip clubs on Bourbon Street have been busted by the Louisiana Office of Alcohol and Tobacco Control and Louisiana State Police for activity involving drugs, prostitution and "lewd/immoral acts," the agencies announced Tuesday morning.

The results of a month-long undercover investigation called Operation "Trick or Treat" will be released at a news conference this afternoon.

Names will be released and charges will be discussed by ATC Commissioner Troy Hebert and LSP Col. Mike Edmonson.

On the one hand, maybe it fits with the Disneylandrieu narrative. Mitch is going to Bourbon Street to sanitize it the way Giuliani did Times Sqaure. You know, to make it wholesome enough to please the better people moving in to the new New Orleans. Remember last weekend, wealthy French Quarter property owners approved a new sales tax that helps fund the presence of these State Police officers... along with Sidney Torres who once was known for making everything down there smell "lemony fresh."

So there's that angle. But also, given the way French Quarter prostitutes and powerful people have been in the news, lately, maybe we're seeing a little bit of the spirit of Jim Garrison at work here.

Years before his inquiry into the Kennedy assassination, New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison first captured the national spotlight in late 1962, when he launched a series of raids on French Quarter strip clubs and bars. Even more extraordinary than the vice raids themselves was Garrison's verbal feud with Orleans Parish's criminal court judges, whom he accused of restricting funds for his raids due to their ties to organized crime.

And that seems kind of appropriate also following on the heels of Oswald Con and, of course, the shocking news that Oswald is, in fact, alive, well, and coaching the football team.