The New Orleans City Council may enact some new rules for parades during Carnival which could include banning throws wrapped in plastic packaging and new restrictions on the number of marching bands and dance troupes.
The council's Community Development Committee on Tuesday approved of rules that would also would ban spectators from setting up campers or trailers within two blocks of a parade route and would put in place other restrictions in the first major rewrite of the city's Carnival code in five years.
The idea is to improve safety along parade routes and keep parades on schedule along with making cleanup after the parade easier.
"We are not out to summons people or be heavy-handed," said Bryon Cornelison, Mayor LaToya Cantrell's director of special projects, who added that the administration made the proposals after discussions with krewe leaders. "We are asking everybody to work together to be a little bit more clean at Mardi Gras."
The last time New Orleans amended the rules that govern Carnival was 2014. At that time the effort was also partly led by Cantrell, who was on the council at the time. Those changes limited the number of parade permits the city could issue, required that ladders set up along parade routes be kept several feet back from the curb and banned people from roping off sections of neutral grounds or other public space along a route.
Krewe members would be required to unwrap the plastic covering the throws before lobbing the trinkets, to help ease the strain on city sanitation workers and help unclog New Orleans' storm drains, krewe members would be required to unwrap the plastic that covers their throws before lobbing the trinkets into the crowd. They would then place the wrappers in trash cans on the floats. Alternatively, krewe members could get rid of the plastic wrapping before boarding their floats.
The rule would help prevent one of the more potentially dangerous parade projectiles from being launched into crowds: a fully wrapped bag of beads.
Riders would still be allowed to toss the bulkier plastic bags with handles and zippers that can carry multiple sets of beads because paradegoers often use those bags to carry their own throws home.
The changes for Carnival will be considered at the next council meeting.