New Orleans cracks down on, cleans up French Quarter

NEW ORLEANS -- Child tap dancers, street mimes, panhandlers and con men -- they have become fixtures in New Orleans' rollicking French Quarter. But now they are getting the bum's rush.

New Orleans is cracking down on street performers and minor crime in its most famous neighborhood, pleasing many of the roughly 4,000 people who live there.

They say the French Quarter's reputation as a playground of sin has gotten out of hand, overshadowing its fine restaurants and 19th-century architecture.

"Upscale and downscale co-exist here, and that's fine. That's the basic character of New Orleans," said Louis Sahuc, a gallery owner and French Quarter resident. "But sleaze and dirt and litter and hustling is not part of New Orleans. We're very permissive in a lot of ways, but permissiveness does not extend to outright abuse by people who want to rip you off."

'A quiet, clean place?'

Others wonder if the city is trying to sanitize the historic area into a Louisiana version of Disney World.

"Why would you come to New Orleans expecting a quiet, clean place?" said Arthur Walker, who reads tourists' palms on Jackson Square, in the center of the French Quarter. "New Orleans is New Orleans. It ain't Orlando."

The cleanup began over the summer, as police started arresting homeless people for obstructing sidewalks, drunkenness, public urination and other offenses. Children who tap dance for tips were cited for curfew violations.

"We had a host of citizen complaints. It's not something we just arbitrarily decided to go in and do," police spokesman Paul Accardo said.

Business owners and residents complained that some of the child tap dancers used their performances as a cover for con games and theft. Police said some dancers were too aggressive.

"We had a surge of complaints against tap dancers browbeating people for money and getting verbally abusive with people who refuse to tip," Accardo said.

Connie Atkinson, a University of New Orleans history professor, said debates over misbehavior in the French Quarter are nearly as old as the neighborhood itself. She said she has found letters to local newspapers from the 19th century in which writers complained that brass bands on Jackson Square made it impossible for people inside St. Louis Cathedral to concentrate on Mass.