[StBernard] the French Quarter

[Westley Annis]

Number one law to add to the books is every restaurant with a drive-thru
must put a garbage can at the exit of the drive-thru and it should be
emptied after every shift or sooner if needed.

If there is no garbage can then the cashiers must take any bagged trash
handed to them.

Just a pet peeve of mind.

Westley

-----Original Message-----

Although this posting may not interest many of you, if your living depends
on the N.O. tourism/hospitality industry then it will. My family decided to
spend Easter in the French Quarter and dine at a local restaurant there. We
keep hearing about how the French Quarter businesses are suffering and
thought it would be nice to get out have a family Easter celebration since
no one has a real kitchen to cook in or a table that seats more than four.

We arrived in the F. Q. after attending mass at OLPS, so it was not even
1pm. The FQ was a mess. Every trash can around the Cathedral and Jackson
Square was overflowing with garbage. The streets had broken bottles and
trash everywhere. The smell was awful. Obviously, the area had not been
cleaned from Saturday.

The FQ was full of local people and some tourists. There were several Easter
parades scheduled throughout the day. We headed to Bourbon St. 
to see one parade on our way to the restaurant. The famous/infamous Bourbon
St. was worse! Not only the same condition as around Jackson Square, but
putrid liquids all over the sidewalks and even a dead bird rotting away on a
sidewalk. Many of the pedestrians, like us, were in nice clothes and shoes
and there were many children. We all had to hop around the mess to get down
the streets.

I know that the FQ isn't always the cleanest it could be. I know that you
can expect such conditions at night or Mardi Gras, but when you are trying
to bring back an entire sector of the economy and get the locals to
patronize the FQ businesses, you have to ask yourself who is minding the
place?  It didn't appear any of the businesses cared to hose down their
sidewalk or clean up the mess-maybe they are tired of it or maybe they see
it as the City's problem. Where is the City dept that has custody of keeping
the FQ clean?  We don't expect the cleanliness of Disneyworld, although
there is no reason why it can't be that clean, but this was so horrible that
I can only imagine if a visiting executive from a cruise line or hotel or
restaurant experienced this.  


The Zurich Golf Classic is approaching, and so is Jazzfest, but it doesn't
see to register with those responsible for the care of the regions no. 1
tourist attraction.

At least in St. Bernard we have a temporary excuse for our current
debris/trash situation that I pray will see improvement every day. But it is
also a reminder that while we are all working on a new, improved, smaller
St. Bernard, add the word CLEANER, as well. Let's not tolerate the littering
and dumping that we had. Let's set our standards higher than before Katrina
with public awareness, enforcement of laws, and providing the public trash
cans and having them emptied. There are a few things that make an enormous
first impression about a community to its citizens and visitor; how clean it
is must be number one.  I'd rather be in a community that is cleaner, with a
lower per capita income than in a place with a higher per capita income that
is filthy.

Deborah Keller