New Orleans’ 2023 Mardi Gras parade routes to stay short

The continuing surge of retirements and difficulty recruiting new officers has left the police department with the fewest commissioned officers in decades.

Fans of New Orleans’ Mardi Gras season can expect another year of shortened parade routes. 

The Mayor’s Mardi Gras Advisory Council said Thursday that the shorter routes of 2022 will continue in 2023, The Times-Picayune/The New Orleans Advocate reported.

“Due to the manpower shortage that we’re seeing across the country within the law enforcement community, we are going to do the exact same routes that we did last year,” said James Reiss III, the advisory council’s chairman.

The 1,500 riders of the Krewe of Zulu roll down St. Charles Avenue on Mardi Gras Day with their 44-float parade entitled Zulu Salutes Divas and Legends on March 1, 2022 in New Orleans, Louisiana. Parades returned to the streets of New Orleans for the 2022 Carnival season after being cancelled last year due to the COVID pandemic. (Photo by Michael DeMocker/Getty Images)

“I will add that we’re very aware, the city is very aware, that it affects all of us individual parading krewes differently,” he said. 

The smaller police force and a shortage of other municipal workers led City Hall to cut blocks from the parades routes last year. The continuing surge of retirements and difficulty recruiting new officers has left the police department with the fewest commissioned officers in decades, leading Mayor LaToya Cantrell in August to question whether Carnival parades would even be possible in 2023, the newspaper reported.

But Carnival boosters and others noted that even though shortened routs aren’t ideal, they’re better than nothing.

“I know we don’t like the shortened routes,” Reiss said, “but if we can work independently with the NOPD to make sure that your individual krewe is doing what it needs to be doing to be safe around that route, it’s very much appreciated by the police department and by the city that we do that.”

Mardi Gras 2023′s parade season begins Jan. 6. Mardi Gras will be celebrated Feb. 21.

TheGrio is FREE on your TV via Apple TV, Amazon Fire, Roku, and Android TV. Please download theGrio mobile apps today! 

SHARE THIS ARTICLE