Longer Parade Routes Approved For Mardi Gras In New Orleans

COVID-19 precautions wiped out most New Orleans’ Mardi Gras festivities in 2021, and a shortage of police officers forced the city to shorten routes for some of its lavish seasonal parades in 2022.

Now, city officials, and business owners are celebrating plans to let the good times roll on longer routes -- and in front of businesses that welcome the crowds -- with security bolstered by neighboring police agencies.

Mayor LaToya Cantrell’s official announcement Monday that parade routes were being lengthened was welcome news to Staci Rosenberg, a founder of the Krewe of Muses. It means the all-female organization and its signature floats — including a giant stilletto-heeled pump swathed in color-changing lights — will be able to roll again on Magazine Street. The thoroughfare lined with small shops, century-old cottages, bars and restaurants runs through neighborhoods that gave the parade what Rosenberg described as a more intimate, family-friendly atmosphere.

“It was important to send a sign, I think, to the world that we’re back,” Rosenberg said of plans to restore the longer route. “We’ve recovered from all kinds of things — the pandemic, the labor shortage, the police shortage.”

It also means bolstered business at Le Bon Temps Roule, a well known around-the-clock neighborhood bar on Magazine Street. Co-Owner Joe Bikulege said it was closed for 17 months because of the pandemic. Mardi Gras business, he said, usually enables him to put aside money to pay for taxes, insurance, building improvements and other emergencies.

“There’s a lot of people that make their living off Mardi Gras,” he noted.

Cantrell made the announcement, heralded by a brass band, at Gallier Hall, a 19th-century Greek Revival building that once was the seat of city government. She was joined by interim Police Superintendent Michelle Woodfork and, via video hookup, Sheriff Susan Hutson — who worked to broker agreements with other Louisiana law enforcement agencies to beef up manpower.

It marked a chance for Hutson and Cantrell, both of whom are elected officials, to bolster their political fortunes at a time when both have been under pressure. Cantrell, in her second term, is facing a recall effort a amid rising crime, unhappiness over delays in street projects and trash pickup, and questions about her use of a city-owned French Quarter apartment. Hutson, who took office last year, inherited a long-troubled city jail and is embroiled in political and legal battles over construction plans and security issues.

Manpower shortages have affected police departments around the country since the beginning of the pandemic and the nationwide protests over the murder of George Floyd. Various estimates put the number of New Orleans police officers at around 900 to 950, about 400 short of the ideal at any time of year.

Exactly how many police officers and sheriff’s deputies from other jurisdictions will help with the parades wasn’t immediately clear. A spokesperson for Hutson’s office said in an email that agreements with other agencies were still being finalized ahead of the major parades.

Carnival season begins each year on Jan. 6 and picks up steam with a growing list of balls and parades. It reaches a climax in the final two weeks before Mardi Gras, or Fat Tuesday, the day before Ash Wednesday and Lent. Mardi Gras falls on Feb. 21 this year.

Last year, major parades were limited to a route that took floats, marching bands and walking clubs down historic St. Charles Avenue to the downtown area. The restoration of longer routes means the Krewe of Thoth can again roll by New Orleans’ Children’s Hospital after a nearly three-year absence.

It will be a return welcome by Dr. Scott Macicek. “It’s scary when your a child and you’re in the hospital,” Macicek said. “Having as many joyful experiences as we can create is important.”

Joe Bikulege, co-owner of Le Bon Temps Roule. The bar is open around the clock on Magazine Street — a busy thoroughfare left off last year’s route. Bikulege said money made during Mardi Gras bolsters income and helps pay for insurance, taxes and maintenance on his building.

By KEVIN McGILL

New Orleans Hosts Its 1St Full-Dress Mardi Gras Since 2020

People are out to party as New Orleans’ first full-dress Mardi Gras since 2020 dawns Tuesday, with a day of back-to-back parades through the city and masks against COVID-19 required only in indoor public spaces.

Parade routes are shorter than usual, because there aren’t enough police for the standard ones, even with officers working 12-hour shifts as they always do on Mardi Gras and the end of the Carnival season leading up to it.

But with COVID-19 hospitalizations and case numbers falling worldwide and 92% of the city’s adults at least partly vaccinated, parades are back on after a season without them.

And people are out and ready to let the good times roll.

The crowd Sunday, when the huge Krewe of Bacchus paraded, “was a record for us in the 10 years we’ve been open,” said Thomas Houston, bar manager at Superior Seafood and Oyster Bar, located at the start of the truncated parade route.

He expected similar crowds on Fat Tuesday — a state holiday — if the weather is good. Not to mention Ash Wednesday, when people following the Catholic tradition of meatless Lenten fare are out for seafood.

“It’s not just a fun money-making time but you get to see people who’ve been around for 10 years,” he said.

Hotel occupancy, though, is expected to be about 66%, down about 19.5% from 2020, said Kelly Schultz, spokesperson for New Orleans & Co., the official sales and marketing organization for New Orleans’ tourism industry.

Parades were canceled last year because officials realized that tightly packed crowds in 2020 had created a superspreader event, making the city an early Southern hot spot for COVID-19.

But “2020 was weird,” Houston said, because two people were hit by floats and killed in the week leading up to Mardi Gras and the mayor suspended use of multiple floats hitched behind one tractor.

“Also the coronavirus was sort of looming over us,” even though its presence wasn’t yet known in New Orleans, Houston said.

As it has for years, the Zulu Social Aid and Pleasure Club will open Fat Tuesday with a parade that started as a mockery of white festivities, with Black float riders in blackface and grass skirts.

Next come the elaborate and fantastical floats of Rex, the self-styled king of Carnival, chosen by a group of high society, old-money businessmen.

After that are the Krewe of Elks and the Krewe of Orleans, a not-quite-endless stretch of homemade floats on long flatbed trailers.

As Mardi Gras Nears, New Orleans Brings Back Mask Mandate

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — New Orleans will reinstitute an indoor mask mandate to fight the spread of COVID-19 while readying for an influx of visitors for the Mardi Gras season, the city health director said Tuesday.

Dr. Jennifer Avegno said the mandate takes effect Wednesday at 6 a.m. and will apply to participants in the annual Mardi Gras balls that take place in the city.

Avegno said Louisiana’s statewide coronavirus daily hospitalization numbers have grown in three weeks “by a factor of seven.” She said those cases have put a strain on hospitals, with emergency room waits as long as 12 hours in some facilities.

Growing numbers of coronavirus cases, driven by the omicron variant can affect treatment for people seeking treatment for other illnesses or injuries, Avegno said.

And, while Avegno said she’s hoping cases will subside in coming weeks, she added hospitalizations and deaths show up weeks after cases are reported. That could mean continued pressure from coronavirus cases about the time emergency rooms face an annua uptick in patient numbers as Mardi Gras nears and tourists, some of them overindulging in alcohol, flood the city.

Mardi Gras, or Fat Tuesday, falls on March 1 this year. Major parades, which draw as many as a million locals and visitors to city streets, begin in the last two weeks of February.

The city already has a requirement that people show proof of vaccinations or negative tests for entry into bars, restaurants and numerous other venues.

Mardi Gras in 2020 became what officials later realized was an early Southern superspreader of COVID-19. Festivities were largely canceled last year. This year, officials are determined to proceed with Mardi Gras events, while enforcing vaccine and testing requirements.

The state health department said Tuesday that just over 1,900 people were hospitalized with COVID-19 in Louisiana as of Monday, up from about 200 in mid-December.