I am disappointed beyond belief at the NOLA Police Department’s sudden curfew enforcement on bands that play in the public spaces of the city. (http://www.nola.com/crime/index.ssf/2010/06/bourbon_street_music_curfew_en.html) Every time I have been in New Orleans, I have been impressed by the way the music enhances the food, culture, and even the city itself.   This is integral to the spirit of the city and what makes it unique within the United States.  What I am seeing here is either private clubs lobbying to shut down the free music outside in order to force people into the clubs (and a hefty cover charge,) or a concentrated assault from those who would remake NOLA into the sanitized PG Disney “Main Street, U.S.A.” that most upper class white folks imagine the city to be.   The city has taken what it has been given and it gives back in the form of music that speaks to the soul and the sense that things might be bad today and bad tomorrow, but right this minute we can make it good.   The third solution that comes to mind is that tourists are surprised by the reality of music in urban areas and are complaining when the party goes all night outside their Bourbon Street hotel window.  What kind of Idiot expects the streets to roll up in New Orleans just because it is late or dark?  That’s what the hotels by the airport are for.  Read the article, it may convince you that the ordinance itself is a crime against the city’s culture.

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