No private toilets, no couches? New Mardi Gras rules expected, but no word on Nyx parade

Paper confetti cannons should be banned, parade horses should be immunized and private portable toilets should be kept off public property. Those were a few of the recommendations that the New Orleans City Council’s Carnival Legislative Advisory Committee made on Tuesday morning.

What the committee did not do was consider filling the vacancy in the parade schedule left by the removal of Nyx. Five weeks ago, the City Council voted unanimously to withhold the controversial krewe’s parade permit, because of rule violations, leaving an open spot on the Wednesday night before Fat Tuesday. Speculation has swirled ever since.

Though a discussion of the official parade schedule was on Tuesday’s meeting agenda, Councilmember Lesli Harris, who led the proceedings, announced that it would be tabled for the time being.

The list of new rules that the committee recommended will be voted on at a regular City Council meeting.

The City Council created the Carnival Legislative Advisory Committee after Mardi Gras 2024. The advisers include council members, krewe representatives, police and fire department leaders, and a member of the public.

Harris said the committee has set out to revise the laws governing Mardi Gras, “some of which no longer address the realities of today.”

For instance, Harris said that all confetti cannons obviously need to be banned — not just the kind that shoot shards of plastic foil. Harris said she witnessed a transformer short out because of a crepe paper confetti cannon that someone shot during a 2024 parade. The popping toy cut the power to 35 Uptown homes and a bar, costing the business money, she said.

The committee recommended that tents of any kind, plus couches and other upholstered furniture, be prohibited along parade routes to help reduce crowd congestion and allow easier passage along sidewalks. Barbecue fires would be outlawed, since sanitation workers have occasionally been confronted with still-burning coals after parades.

Likewise, portable toilets of all sorts—which are often abandoned after parades—would be banned from public property within three blocks of parade routes. Harris proposed the city install more “sanctioned” portable toilets at parade formation areas to meet the need.

Asked if enforcing the new regulations against tents, toilets and such would cost the city more money, Harris said that, “yes, it may increase cost.” But, she pointed out, since the sanitation department wouldn’t “be called on to remove these things,” the manpower expense “might be a wash.”

Parades are required to include a certain number of marching bands, but what exactly defines a marching band is apparently in question. So, the committee proposed a new rule that all Mardi Gras parade marching bands include at least 30 musicians and other participants, not just musicians as the code currently stipulates. Smaller second-line style brass bands are welcome, but won’t be counted as official marching bands.

No one objected to a provision that would make parading krewes provide the City Council and the Louisiana SPCA with copies of their parade lineup. Nor did anyone disagree with the need for horses participating in Mardi Gras parades to be thoroughly immunized for potential infection from West Nile virus, Rabies, and several other diseases.

And no one objected to a rule that would keep horses not participating in the parade, at least two football fields from the route—not including NOPD mounts.

Harris wryly said that banning extraneous horses from the parade route should be a cinch because reptiles are already banned. Indeed, one of the more enigmatic sections of the Mardi Gras code reads “No reptiles shall be allowed within 200 yards of a Mardi Gras parade route … “