"Major entertainment district"

This is kind of a story about the mayor's objections to a recently passed concealed carry law.  But the part that draws our interest is where we learn that Alonzo Knox might have a solution. 

City leaders said they hope that after  Gov. Landry signs the bill, legislators will at least agree to exempt the entertainment district of New Orleans. 

Councilwoman Helena Moreno said she believes a proposed house bill might offer some pushback against permit-less concealed carry. According to Moreno, State Rep. Alonzo Knox, whose district includes The French Quarter, plans to author a bill to limit the crime session law's application to his district. 

"It's a carveout of what we are calling a major entertainment district, these are the areas which have the largest crowds," Moreno said. "What the legislation does, is it puts it under a firearm-free zone, so in public places there would not be firearms allowed."

Moreno said she has spoken to Republican legislators privately, who said they would support the bill. 

Something tells me an "entertainment district" bill by Alonzo Knox is likely to be more about heightening surveillance, cracking down on street vendors and removing homeless people from sight during the Superbowl next year and that the guns bit is just a coincidental add on.  Anyway, watch this space, I guess.

Actually, instead of being lazy, I looked up the bill. On its face, it just defines a new term, "major entertainment district" in order to create a zone where firearms are prohibited.

A major entertainment district" means the public spaces within an area that traditionally hosts more than fifteen million people annually, contains a venue for sports and entertainment with a capacity for more than seventy-five thousand people, a convention center with more than one million square feet of exhibition space, and has one land-based casino. 

This shall include the area of the city of New Orleans containing the boundaries of the French Quarter as provided in R.S. 25:799(B), the Downtown Development District as provided in R.S. 33:2740.3(A), and the New Orleans Ernest N. Morial Convention Center as provided in R.S 33:130.862(A).

Conveniently, of course, this creates a new stop-and-frisk zone for Jeff Landry's "Troop NOLA."  There are other issues as well with designating a larger part of downtown under a term that implies its primary function is to entertain tourists.