NEW ORLEANS (WGNO) — New Orleans leaders are responding to the state’s new permitless concealed carry law by recognizing the New Orleans Police Department’s French Quarter police station as a school.
The law goes into effect on Thursday, July 4.
Officers with the NOPD already report to the Eighth District Station on Royal Street for training classes, but according to NOPD Superintendent Anne Kirkpatrick, the classes will now be scheduled regularly.
“The area within 1,000 feet of this district station will be a firearm-free zone,” explained Kirkpatrick.
The police chief says the 1,000 feet covers parts of Bourbon Street and most of the upper French Quarter, where several businesses are located.
“I’m extremely happy about it,” said Franco Valobra, the owner of Valobra Jewelry & Antiques, whose Royal Street shop also operates as his office as the Consulate of Italy. “The safekeeping of the tourists should be of primary importance for the administrations, for the police department, for the state.”
Before the permitless concealed carry legislation was signed into law, New Orleans officials were shut down when they asked legislators for protective measures within the law.
“We were not just going to sit back and say, ‘oh well,’” said New Orleans City Council President Helena Moreno. “We were going to figure out some kind of path to find some type of solution to protect the people of New Orleans, the people who live in the French Quarter, the people who come to work in the French Quarter and the people who come to visit the French Quarter.”
Moreno says that following a short-permitting process and the update of the firearm-free zone map, it will become illegal to carry a gun near the Eighth District Station.
“I want the tourists to feel comfortable, walking the beauty of the French Quarter late at night without fearing that someone with a gun might be there, and I’m glad that now, if they are there, they’re going to be arrested for possessing a gun,” said Valobra.
The NOPD is also reminding people it plans to operate under a city ordinance that prohibits carrying a concealed weapon without a permit until Thursday, Aug. 1.
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