NEW ORLEANS (WGNO)— The City of New Orleans has decided to begin enforcing size limits for social aid and pleasure club second-line parades, and many of the organizations disagree with the enforcement.
Tamara Jackson, President of the VIP Ladies and Kids Social Aid & Pleasure Club says, “It’s just so unfortunate that they impose this enforcement in the middle of the season, especially after the pandemic when clubs had not paraded for almost 2 years.”
Jackson’s second line parade happened this past Sunday, but not before the city send out a tweet Saturday saying they would begin enforcement of protocols on these parades put in place a few years back but not enforced. This enforcement limits the sizes and elements in the second lines and the groups are not happy.
According to Jackson, “This is our ancestral heritage. This is everything who New Orleans is and will be and it’s unfortunate that we are always under attack with our city’s administration.”
What’s more is that the mayor has participated in some of the second lines this year including a very large parade in Treme. City hall spokesman Beau Tidwell says post Mardi Gras timing and manpower dictates the rules enforcement now.
Here is a copy of the city’s regulations taken from a consent decree agreed to by the city and the social aid and pleasure clubs in 2017
Tidwell stated, “We’re now in a situation where our public safety responders, NOPD have been working 12 hour shifts for about 2 weeks in a row. We have to find a way to drop the pressure on them somewhere.”
Ed Bucker is the head of the Big 7 Social Aid & Pleasure Club and their annual second line parade is coming up on Mother’s Day, and he thinks the enforcement is not fair.
“The mayor has been in a many parades this year. She has been celebrating even during the pandemic, she’s been parading and dancing. Now she’s on the floats in parades and she wants to change the game after she’s had her party, now she don’t want no one else to party,” said Buckner.
Buckner says he’s all for public safety but feels the changes could have been handled differently, “If you had called a meeting we could have all sat down and discussed this.”
The city says they met with some of the social aid and pleasure clubs before Mardi Gras and they intend to meet with clubs with upcoming parades this week.
