Newell Normand has been hammering lately at the point that the culture of non-compliance is out of control in New Orleans, costing residents their feeling of safety and costing the community sales dollars and more.
And he's tired of people coming at him about it and saying if he believes in law and order he's a gentrifier.
"A lot of people didn't feel safe," Normand said, adding "It seems as though this culture of non-compliance is alive and well." And there's a wide gray area between what he's seeing these days in New Orleans -- the kind of total chaos that leads to a breakdown of society -- and being a gentrifier.
Take, for instance, the bucket beaters who steal buckets from behind restaurants and then go out front of five-star destination restaurants and bang away at them for tips.
"School-age kids were out there on Bourbon Street beating buckets. Interesting. Was Friday a holiday? I don't think so. I don't think I missed it. And yet, they're out there beating buckets, definitely school aged. Why not in school? Because that's part of our culture. They're culture bearers. They get an exception to the truancy laws. And their parents get an exception because they are exploiting their children by putting them out there when they should be in school," Normand said.
He added, sarcastically, 'what a valuable education for our 12 year-olds, beating a bucket.'
Last week, questions directed at New Orleans' new police chief had Normand wondering why the city's leaders seemed to focus more on local culture than actually fighting crime. At the same time, unlicensed street vendors dangerously selling everything from snakes to barbecue to homemade cocktails on the street and marijuana go unchecked.
"We will continue to run our little checks, maybe every two to three months, thinking that we're going to do something meaningful instead of being out there every weekend and maybe seizing the snake, maybe passing some health department laws that prevent that from going on. Maybe issuing some permits ... We're trying to lure people from all over the world to come down there (Bourbon Street) to gain a better understanding of the bucket beating culture that we have here. If that's the goal, then we are succeeding."
He added that the kids out there posing as 'culture bearers' aren't even learning distinctive rhythms or songs. It's all the same, all the time. And no one seems to be doing anything to change it.
