New Orleans' chief tourism promoter is blaming residents for Mayor LaToya Cantrell's new orders closing bars and major public gathering spots in the final days of the Mardi Gras season, and is encouraging visitors to come to town to celebrate Carnival.
“Our own residents created a dilemma for government,” New Orleans & Co. CEO Stephen Perry said Friday in an email to the agency's members. “It wasn’t the small number of responsible tourists we have been hosting or the majority of our citizens and businesses.”
Bars will be closed, people will have to pass through checkpoints to get to major Carnival gathering spots like Bourbon and Frenchman streets,…
Perry called Cantrell's decision to close bars, ban go-cup liquor sales and block off popular areas at night “highly problematic,” saying it will hurt small businesses and compromise his agency's brand with “awkward city messaging.”
“But this is where we are when locals do dumb things and compliance and quick response from the city is weak or nonexistent in real time,” Perry wrote.
In an interview Saturday, Perry said "95% of New Orleanians do a great job and conduct themselves well and listen to the mayor and have listened to national leaders."
Inspectors found patrons inside, unmasked and being served after mandatory closing time
His said his email referred to households mixing and spreading the coronavirus, which fueled many outbreaks during the Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year's holidays, and to large groups of unmasked people in bars popular among young adults.
"What the mayor has been so frustrated with, we agree with," Perry said. "And that is that there are small groups of people in New Orleans [that] just continue to defy logic and won't wear masks. ... It's the mixing of households. It’s getting together in large numbers without social distancing."
In the email, Perry said it was “unfortunate that young people, college students in particular, and many other area residents” did not follow safety rules and held large, maskless gatherings. He referred to recent social media posts showing people gathering on Bourbon Street and in “a favorite bar of all ours.”
New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell’s office Sunday called a video showing a large crowd of people packed onto Bourbon Street this weekend “unac…
Perry said he meant Monkey Hill, an Uptown bar recently under fire when a private party for 40 people ballooned to a much larger event.
"To me, getting together with large groups of people cramming into a space without safety protocols is a dumb personal decision," Perry said Saturday. "It’s bad for the economy and disrespectful for family and friends."
New Orleans and Co. is a private tourism promotion company that is partly publicly funded and acts as a marketing agency for the city. Perry's email went to about 1,000 members, spokesperson Kelly Schulz said.
Stephen Perry, CEO of Orleans & Co.
Perry told members, which include hotel and restaurant executives, to encourage friends and customers to visit New Orleans for what remains of Carnival. He said tourists “should still come and may even have more fun than ever.”
The email was sent the day after Louisiana officials warned that another coronavirus surge is likely because of a more infectious variant newly circulating in the state.
Less than a week after Tulane University reported its highest-ever spike in daily coronavirus cases, the university said the recent surge has …
The variant, known as B.1.1.7, is thought to be as much as 50% more transmissible than the coronavirus that detected in the U.S. in early 2020 and has become the dominant strain in the United Kingdom and Ireland. Scientists are reviewing evidence suggesting it might be more deadly.
Gov. John Bel Edwards on Thursday told Louisiana residents to enjoy Carnival but to limit gatherings to their own household members.
“There’s not much enjoyment when you find out that someone contracted COVID at one of these gatherings," Edwards said. "And then there’s even less enjoyment the next time you gather and that individual isn't there because they're in the hospital or dead."
The Louisiana Department of Health is doubling down on efforts to increase surveillance for new and more contagious variants of the coronaviru…
Louisiana recorded 1,000 COVID-19 deaths in three weeks because of gatherings, traveling and activities related to the fall and winter holidays, Edwards said.
New Orleans & Co. will launch messaging between now and Mardi Gras on safety and responsible behavior, underlining that restaurants and hotels are still open.
"Our overriding goal is to keep this city as safe as possible and at same time have our businesses operate in safest manner they possibly can," Perry said.
The Link Lonk
February 07, 2021 at 07:35AM
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New Orleans tourism booster blames locals' misbehavior for public health restrictions - NOLA.com
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