Bars will be closed, people will have to pass through checkpoints to get to major Carnival gathering spots like Bourbon and Frenchman streets, and there will be a heavy police presence patrolling the city as part of a sweeping plan unveiled Friday for the days leading up to Mardi Gras.
With city officials focused on preventing another surge in coronavirus cases, some of the most quintessential elements of Mardi Gras, and the city itself, will be off limits. Go cups are banned, as is mass revelry in the French Quarter. The North Claiborne Avenue median under Interstate 10 will be fenced in to prevent crowds and street parties as well.
The restrictions, announced by Mayor LaToya Cantrell, mark a dramatic turn for an administration that has largely used scolding and appeals to prevent violations of coronavirus rules.
Carnival parades and balls were canceled in December. Since then, requests that residents and tourists use their best judgement to stay safe have generally prevailed. But in recent weeks, amid growing outrage over large — and largely maskless — crowds, the tone from public officials began to shift.
The strict new rules were met with a mix of resignation and anger by bar and restaurant staff, who said they felt the rug had been pulled out from under them less than two weeks before Fat Tuesday.
But reflecting back on last year’s Mardi Gras, a superspreader event that contributed to the virus’ heavy toll in New Orleans, Cantrell said she would “rather be accused of doing too much than doing too little.”
“I think we were all hopeful that we could strike the necessary balance of having a safe Mardi Gras and a fun Mardi Gras as well, but given these new variants, recent large crowds in the Quarter and the potential for even larger crowds this weekend and the weekend as we move into Mardi Gras, it has become very apparent that it is hard to do,” Cantrell said.
The city’s plan will begin with stepped-up enforcement of its existing rules, which place limits on occupancy and prohibit bars from serving patrons indoors.
The added restrictions will kick in on Friday, Feb. 12 and run through Fat Tuesday on Feb. 16. They require all of the city’s bars, including those with a conditional restaurant permit, to shut down completely. Retail liquor sales in the French Quarter will be banned and restaurants will be prohibited from serving go cups.
Pedestrians will be prohibited from hanging out on Bourbon, Frenchmen, Decatur and North Claiborne — all traditional Carnival hotspots — with police setting up checkpoints and barricades at intersections. Only people heading to or from their homes, hotels, restaurants or shops will be allowed through, according to New Orleans Police Department Superintendent Shaun Ferguson.
To further block off Claiborne, a fence will be erected under Interstate 10.
Police will be instructed to break up crowds, issuing tickets or making arrests if necessary. Businesses flouting the rules will be shut down “on the spot,” according to officials.
City Hall has done little over the course of the pandemic to enforce rules on bars and gatherings, issuing a handful of temporary closures to businesses that have flouted the regulations and rarely breaking up groups of revelers.
But on Friday, permitting and code enforcement chief Peter Bowen warned that the city was aware of businesses that were in violation and would be cracking down if they didn’t change their ways.
“Your selfishness continues to threaten the delicate ecosystem that is our hospitality industry. You are directly responsible for the deaths of New Orleanians,” Bowen said.
The last minute nature of the new rules caused problems for some businesses. Beaux Church, director of Café Lafitte in Exile, Good Friends, Rawhide and Clover Grill, said food and drink supplies had already been purchased for his establishments.
On Friday, the businesses replaced the Pride, Mardi Gras and American flags hanging from their balconies with white flags indicating they surrendered to the mayor, he said.
Local 718, a restaurant and bar that opened on Bourbon Street late last year, plans to be open but was ratcheting down expectations on Friday, General Manager Melissa Harrigan said.
“The mayor even said, ‘Hey, come to New Orleans,’” Harrigan said. “How can you say that and then say ‘Stay in your hotel room?'”
Not all were opposed, however.
“I’m glad that we are not going to be putting beads over bodies,” said Mark Schettler, general manager of Bar Tonique on North Rampart Street. “We are talking about five days of closure to prevent 14 to 28 days of closure if there was another spike… Neither option is great, but we are in a global pandemic.”
The restrictions amount to a never-before attempted shutdown of Carnival-related revelry. Parades have been canceled in years past, notably during the 1979 police strike and during major wars, but celebrations through the French Quarter and at the city’s watering holes could still continue, Carnival historian Arthur Hardy said.
“There’s no model for this and enforcement is going to be a challenge,” Hardy said. “We’re asking for restraint in a celebration that’s built on excess.”
Similarly — short of political demonstrations and public safety issues — there appears to be no precedent for the plans to set up barricades and checkpoints to limit crowds on Bourbon Street, said Tulane geographer Richard Campanella, author of “Bourbon Street: A History.”
But they do fit in with other proposals on controlling Bourbon Street in recent years, dating back to plans by former Mayor Mitch Landrieu’s administration to install security checkpoints in the wake of shootings along the stretch.
“While the current plan is unprecedented, it does seem to me we’ve been taking little steps in that direction — that is, in the direction of controlling access and managing crowd behavior on Bourbon Street,” Campanella said.
Even as they shut down parades and instituted restrictions in recent weeks, officials also continued to promote the city as a safe spot for tourists. Far from warning them against coming, Cantrell and others had hewed to the line that they were welcome as long as they behaved.
Councilmember Jay H. Banks came the closest to fully warning tourists to stay away on Friday.
“If by chance you have an aversion to wearing a mask, stay where y’at. If you’ve got a problem with social distancing, don’t come. If your expectation is to come to the city that care forgot and forget we care about our residents, you are going to be sorely disappointed,” Banks said. “I would suggest that if your expectation is the Mardi Gras of the past, don’t waste your money.”
Trumpeter Kermit Ruffins, who operates the Treme Mother-in-Law Lounge on North Claiborne Avenue, was planning to cook 20 pounds of red beans and rice and mix go-drinks on Mardi Gras as he watched Mardi Gras Indians parade on the street, as they have for generations.
Now, with Claiborne set to be fenced off and no bars allowed open, Ruffins and his band, the Barbecue Swingers, will play live at the bar for several hours on Fat Tuesday — but for an online audience only.
“I will put a pan of chicken in the oven, and make some pork and beans and rice for my band, and we will smoke some reefer and have fun,” he said. “Unfortunately, anybody that’s knocking at the door trying to get in, there is nothing we can do.”