The Cantrell administration released a report this week: A ‘Nighttime economy strategic plan’ for the city of New Orleans.
And I want to say upfront, the point I’m attempting to make here isn’t to rag on the city’s nightlife and those who labor to make it happen. I enjoy it as much as anybody else. We need to support these folks.
However, especially after this past week, the release of any economic-related “report” by our mayor should be received as one big city-wide slap in the face.
“Nightlife is one of our city’s greatest assets,” says the Mayor’s Office of Nighttime Economy's 27-page report. “It fuels our economy, sustains our culture, and provides jobs, opportunity, and joy for thousands of people every day. This strategy is a first-of-its-kind effort to coordinate programs, partnerships, and policies that strengthen the nighttime economy as a vital part of New Orleans’ cultural and economic future.”
If you take that at face level, ignoring everything that’s going on, that statement doesn't sound offensive. Then you bring in context.
To level set, let's do a quick mental exercise. Ask yourself: What is the economic future of the city of New Orleans? Did we, or did we not, just spend the last 6 months listening to every mayoral candidate harp on the fact that our most fundamental city services are in chaos and disrepair?
Did we, or did we not, just this week, discover that the city isn’t just broke, but in the hole to the tune of $160 million? Are we, or are we not, unsure if the city can pay its employees through the rest of the year unless we ask for a massive loan from the state bond commission? (A loan we now know the governor is attempting vehemently to reject?)
I ask this directly to the mayor: With all of this going on... You want to go ahead and release a conceptual report about the economic future of New Orleans nightlife?
There might not be any economic future for the city of New Orleans because of you.
This report is a joke. It's worse than that; it’s an insult. And it's emblematic of the radical disregard that Mayor Cantrell has held for her constituency.
And in case you're wondering what’s in the report, it’s not a strategy to enshrine quality sanitation and garbage collection. It doesn’t include making sure musicians and service industry workers have working roads to travel as they go to work. It’s not about making sure the city can pay its security personnel, paramedics, and building inspectors to make the community safer.
It’s full of proposals about interactive nightlife maps, creating media partnerships, and allocating revenue into a music industry fund.
Again—these aren’t evil goals. But there is something sick about bringing these things up when there isn't a thin red cent to put into a music industry fund. There isn't enough money for base paychecks.
You can’t fund dreams with good intentions. It’s wish thinking. And it’s happening at a time were wish thinking is costing our neighbors their livelihoods. And we need to hope and pray that the next administration understands this.
Cantrell knows she won’t be able to accomplish a damn thing before her time is up. So, at best, all releasing a report does is potentially put it on the radar of the incoming administration, an administration that's already working toward cleaning up the hellscape that Cantrell and her team of under-communicative, overly-combative cronies built over the past eight years.
So what would be the best way for Cantrell to spend her final days? It’s not throwing up pie-in-the-sky proposals for more robust earplug distribution on Bourbon Street and a shuttle bus for drunks. Maybe the mayor’s time would be best spent picking up a flat shovel and a bucket of cold patch asphalt, and spending each day leading up to January 12th, 2026, filling potholes in the 17th Ward.
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