Why is New Orleans policing parade goers who put up a tent, ladders and stands along a parade route, but the homeless can camp out whenever they want, whenever they want?
That was a question that WWL host Newell Normand wrestled with during a call with a woman named Mary, who said she was bothered by the situation.
"They're going to let the homeless camp out and they're not going to do anything about it?" Mary said, joking "what if I say I'm homeless and just happened to have a ladder with me."
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Normand said it was a duality that doesn't make life or enforcement any easier. "We're creating exceptions all the time ... and by the time you get to the third or fourth exception you have what we're articulating."
But there are also a lot of complications when it comes to planning parade routes and visitors that makes things difficult, Normand conceded.
"We've actually carried out things to the extreme," Normand said, adding there were once people trying to rope off a quarter of acre of land and then watching it to make sure no one could enter. "And then you had conflict ... I saw it year after year after year."