Business leaders urge passing of original carveout bill pushing for concealed carry permits in French Quarter

NEW ORLEANS (WVUE)—New Orleans business leaders are concerned that the New Orleans Police Department’s successful efforts to reduce violent crime are being hampered.

Many leaders told Fox 8 that the city’s officers are losing a useful tool, thanks to dismantling a bill that called for required concealed carry permits in the French Quarter.

Those leaders are urging the legislature to pass the bill as it was originally filed.

Those leaders include:

New Orleans & Company: Walt Leger

NOLA Coalition: Kelisha Garrett and Greg Rusovich

New Orleans Business Council: Paul Flower, Jim Cook, Amy Glovinsky

Jefferson Business Council: Fred Preis, Larry Dale

Metropolitan Crime Commission: Rafael Goyeneche

New Orleans Chamber of Commerce: Sandra Lindquist

This comes as Louisiana’s new permit-less carry law takes effect this summer. A week after the NOPD’s superintendent, the head of the Metropolitan Crime Commission and the city council president spoke in favor of the original bill.

They are taking issue with the watering down of Senate Bill 419, now to be debated in the full Senate. In its original form, this bill would have made it illegal to carry a gun in the French Quarter without a permit.

Walt Leger with New Orleans & Company, Greg Rusovich with The Nola Coalition, and Jim Cook, who’s both the general manager at the Sheraton New Orleans Hotel on Canal Street and on the New Orleans Business Council, all said the French Quarter is an economic engine for the state where 15 million gather on an annual basis, sometimes hundreds of thousands at a time.

“We’re disappointed that the (Local and Municipal Committee) last week in the Senate amended that bill and changed it entirely,” said Leger. “This is a unique area; a special area and it’s deserving of special attention.”

“If we had this carve out for the French Quarter we could say, ‘yes, that is happening in the state however you can be confident it is still illegal to carry in the French Quarter without a permit,’ and that’s an important message for us to be able to carry out to those decision makers thinking about bringing large conventions into our city,” Cook said.

They believe the reduction in violent crime is a direct reflection of an officer’s ability to search for and seize illegal guns.

“Being proactive is really the most important thing that law enforcement can do,” Leger said.

Related Coverage:

Crime watchdog says Gov. Landry went back on his promise of carveouts for French Quarter in permitless carry law

New Orleans leaders testify at State Capitol in support of firearm-free zones in entertainment districts

New Orleans officials push to exclude French Quarter, Downtown from permitless concealed carry

La. lawmakers debating firearm-free zones to combat permitless concealed carry

Louisiana bill to restrict concealed guns near parade routes fails; debate continues over THC products

Committee backs restrictions on permitless concealed carry within 100 feet of parades, demonstrations

According to nola.com, a poll conducted for the Times Picayune, The Advocate, which included 800 Louisiana voters across political, racial, age and gender lines, shows that overall, 63% of respondents believe people should have permits to conceal firearms, while the remaining 33% said the law should be kept as is.

“Where we used to argue and fight with words, people just pull out a gun and shoot,” Todd Blauvelt said.

“Simply turning around and requiring certain basic standards to have the right to carry a firearm in public, I don’t think is too much to ask and I don’t think is in any way an infringement on the second amendment and I say this as a guy who has a gun in his hand three months out of the year,” Seamus McGraw said.

The adopted substitute version of Republican Senator Kirk Talbot’s carve-out bill, now striped of gun-free language, would make carrying a permit-less gun while intoxicated illegal across the state, and calls for increased fines in the quarter.

It also allows police to confiscate a handgun from someone who is negligently carrying it and might pose a threat or danger.

“It narrows the ability of law enforcement to approach an individual who may be carrying a gun. Because to say it’s negligently being carried compared to saying it’s sticking out of your pocket is a whole different thing,” Rusovich said.

We’ve reached out to Governor Jeff Landry for comment on the carve out law multiple times and have not heard back.

When the permit-less concealed weapons law was approved, he called it an incredible victory for liberty in Louisiana and said the state joined 27 others in passing constitutional carry.

He said, “it is fundamentally clear law-abiding citizens should never have to seek government permission to safeguard themselves and their families.”

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