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New Orleans’ top tourism promoter blames residents for Mayor LaToya Cantrell’s new orders to close bars and major public gathering places in the final days of Mardi Gras season, and urges visitors to come to town to celebrate carnival.
“Our own residents have created a dilemma for the government,” New Orleans & Co. CEO Stephen Perry said in an email to agency members on Friday. “It is not the small number of responsible tourists that we have welcomed or the majority of our citizens and businesses.”
Bars will be closed, people will have to go through checkpoints to get to the main carnival gathering places such as Bourbon and Frenchman streets, …
Perry called Cantrell’s decision to close bars, ban takeout sales and block popular areas at night “very problematic”, saying it would hurt small businesses and undermine his agency’s brand. with “embarrassing urban messages”.
“But that’s where we are when locals do stupid things and the city’s compliance and rapid response is weak or nonexistent in real time,” Perry wrote.
In an interview on Saturday, Perry said that “95% of New Orleans are doing a great job and behaving well, listening to the mayor and have listened to national leaders.”
Inspectors found customers inside, unmasked and served after mandatory closing time
He said his email referred to households mixing and spreading the coronavirus, which fueled many epidemics over the Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year holidays, and large groups of people being unmasked at bars popular among the locals. young adults.
“What the mayor has been so frustrated with, we agree with,” Perry said. “And is that there are small groups of people in New Orleans [that] just keep defying logic and don’t wear a mask … it’s the household mix. It’s getting together in large numbers without social distancing. ”
In the email, Perry said it was “unfortunate that young people, especially students and many other residents in the area” did not follow safety rules and held large gatherings without masks. He referred to recent social media posts showing people gathering on Bourbon Street and in “one of our favorite bars.”
New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell’s office on Sunday called a video showing a large crowd of people crowded into Bourbon Street this weekend “unac …
Perry said he was talking about Monkey Hill, an Uptown bar that recently came under fire when a private party for 40 people flew into a much larger event.
“For me, getting together with large groups of people crammed into a space without security protocols is a stupid personal decision,” Perry said on Saturday. “It’s bad for the economy and disrespectful to family and friends.”
New Orleans and Co. is a private tourism promotion company that is partly state funded and acts as a marketing agency for the city. Perry’s email went to around 1,000 members, spokeswoman Kelly Schulz said.
Stephen Perry, CEO of Orléans & Co.
Perry told members, including hotel and restaurant executives, to encourage friends and customers to visit New Orleans for what’s left of the carnival. He said tourists “should always come and can even have more fun than ever”.
The email was sent the day after officials in Louisiana warned another coronavirus outbreak was likely due to a more infectious variant newly circulating in the state.
Less than a week after Tulane University reported its highest ever recorded peak in daily coronavirus cases, the university said the recent outbreak had …
The variant, known as B.1.1.7, is believed to be up to 50% more transmissible than the coronavirus detected in the United States in early 2020 and has become the dominant strain in the United Kingdom and Ireland . Scientists are looking at evidence suggesting it could be more deadly.
Governor John Bel Edwards on Thursday told residents of Louisiana to take advantage of the carnival but limit gatherings to members of their own households.
“There isn’t a lot of fun when you find out someone has contracted COVID at one of these gatherings,” Edwards said. “And then there’s even less fun the next time you get together and that person isn’t there because they’re in the hospital or dead.”
The Louisiana Department of Health is stepping up efforts to increase surveillance for new, more contagious variants of coronaviru …
Louisiana has recorded 1,000 deaths from COVID-19 in three weeks due to gatherings, travel and activities related to the fall and winter vacation, Edwards said.
New Orleans & Co. will launch messages by Mardi Gras on safety and responsible behavior, pointing out that restaurants and hotels are always open.
“Our overriding goal is to keep this city as safe as possible and, at the same time, to make our businesses operate in the safest way possible,” said Perry.
Emily Woodruff covers public health for The Times-Picayune | New Orleans lawyer as a member of the Report For America corps.
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