The landlords are the victim, see

This is a story about how the pro-Short Term Rental lobby is working to keep the City Council in check by threatening frivolous but expensive legal action.  

The lawsuit contends that these restrictions amount to a deprivation of the STR-owners' property and due process rights under the Louisiana and U.S. constitutions, as well as the city's constitution, the New Orleans Home Rule Charter.

Eric Bay, chairman of ANP, says that the point of the lawsuit is not to obtain damages but to try to persuade the City to make sure those STR operators who had legally-obtained licenses before last year's moratorium are "grandfathered" in and will be able to continue to operate legally. The lawsuit argues that the City's existing zoning rules - the Comprehensive Zoning Ordinance - provide for this continuing use.
 

Why is Eric Bay still talking? I thought they fired him. No matter. If the point here is to be annoying then he is probably your guy.  Short term rental landlords have filed suits like this in other cities and failed.  There are multiple problems with ANP's reasoning not the least of which being that they are asking to be "grandfathered" into a regulatory status that is barely the age of a toddler.  Also it's just dumb.

Property rights law generally allows a pre-existing commercial use when there is a change in land use regulations, says John Lovett, a professor at Loyola University New Orleans College of Law and a property expert. "However, the licenses granted by the city already signaled to the property owners that their right to engage in whole home rentals was contingent on annual renewal of the licenses," and the new rules would return the situation to the status quo before the experiment with whole home rentals.

But they know this. A lawsuit like this isn't intended to win in court. It's meant to intimidate councilmembers just as they are taking up the issue next week. ANP has money to blow asserting its dominance while the council has to worry about the budgetary impact of legal defense. (Or at least they need to hear arguments based in such a concern.)

But ANP is really the little guy, here, see. Hell they are straight up woke, even. 

The ANP says that it represents the typical smaller operator in New Orleans and has not been opposed to new rules. In fact, Bay says, the ANP proposed even stricter rules in 2016 than the rules that were eventually adopted the following year.

The group says its membership demographics are 78% female and 50% minority, with many having invested in rental properties as part of their retirement plans.

"Our group is speaking up for those afraid to come forward and those whose voices have not been heard and whose legal rights are being threatened,” said Janice Burrell, ANP vice president and a retired computer science professor, who is African-American.

"As a minority female and New Orleans resident, we were promised a chance to build personal wealth, and share in our city’s hospitality industry under a legal taxable operating framework," she adds. "Through no cause of our own, this new set of guidelines seeks to take that opportunity away."

Sorry, everybody who has been fighting for affordable housing and against the conversion of neighborhoods into tourism villages for  the better part of a decade now. It turns out you are all the real racists. Maybe we are laughing at that but this is the political argument that has already won the day with your elected persons.