April 05, 2006, 6:42 a.m.
No Business, As Usual
Business in the Big Easy ain’t easy for entrepreneurs.

By Josh Wexler

New Orleans, Louisiana — Ideas abound about how to help New Orleans recover from Katrina. But worry no more. The city council of the Crescent City has come up with the solution, and it may surprise you: Smother all attempts by local residents to help themselves.

The New Orleans city council — which oversees a city desperately in need of opportunity and services — recently passed an ordinance banning “retail sales outside of enclosed buildings” anywhere in the city, unless they are explicitly authorized by other laws.

As a longtime book vendor on the streets of New Orleans, I would like to say I was surprised by this government-issued nonsense. But doing business in the Big Easy is anything but easy for those with entrepreneurial drive.

After two months away, I was happy to return home after evacuating this past summer. When I returned in the fall, I found most of the city was still in shambles. While today so much of New Orleans remains a graveyard of empty houses and boarded storefronts, there has been a vital force pushing outwards from the few neighborhoods that remained relatively intact despite Katrina. Some of the most encouraging sights to me have been the signs of economic life organically rising up in the city’s public spaces — shops flowing out onto the sidewalks, outdoor flea markets (often organized by neighborhood bars), garage sales after people have sorted through the property in their flooded homes, trailers parked in the French Quarter serving food to locals and tourists, mobile vendors serving food to workers in devastated areas. People have a deep attachment and an abiding commitment to this place that is on display as folks spend their days rebuilding their homes, their businesses, and their lives.

The sweeping city-council measure, introduced by my councilwoman, Renee Gill Pratt, outlaws the very activity that has restored life to city sidewalks. The penalty for engaging in such commerce or for displays, signs or advertisements for outdoor sales? Six months in jail and/or a $500 fine.

This is precisely the wrong direction for our government. With all that needs to be done to get this city up on its feet, it is unconscionable that the city council would be wasting its limited capacities on such obstructionist efforts. Fortunately, they didn’t waste too much time according to our local newspaper, the Times-Picayune: The measure passed 7 to 0, with no discussion. Nor did they waste any time notifying the public of a possible ban.

This is business as usual in New Orleans, which means no business, as usual.

For all the hope that New Orleans economy could begin anew without the old vices of graft, nepotism, and bureaucracy, this measure demonstrates that the old ways of our city government have not changed at all post-Katrina.

In 2001, I tried to start a small sidewalk bookstand with my girlfriend, Jordan Blanton. We were caught in a Catch-22 (literary pun fully intended.) The city told us repeatedly that to sell our books, we needed a license. Then, when we asked for an application for the license, city officials told us that no such application existed. While city hall permitted the sale of everything from t-shirts to razor blades on the streets, it did not allow us to sell books. Ultimately, with the help of the Institute for Justice, we sued the City of New Orleans and in 2003 won that right to start our business.

New Orleans politicians have a relentless ambition to control every aspect of business in the city, and this pervasive regulation has never been more counterproductive as it is now.

City officials ought to stop deciding who can come back and what they can do when they get here. They ought to open up the city and its public spaces and let the people decide the best way to rebuild our lives and our town. Some of these entrepreneurial efforts are filling essential needs in areas where stores are not there to meet the demand. Some are symbols of resilience in the face of incomprehensible devastation. Some simply are a labor of love. All are contributing vitally to the rebuilding of New Orleans.

The government has no business shutting them down.

— Josh Wexler is a book vendor in New Orleans.