New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell’s decision to apply a decades-old tax enforcement rule to art markets earlier this year is shining a light on a broken permitting system market organizers and vendors say needs significant changes to make it work properly and effectively.
Putting on an art market is no easy task even under the best of circumstances. Organizers must find a venue, recruit vendors and arrange for power, music and promotion. It’s a job that could give even veteran cat wranglers nightmares.
But the event is worth the effort in most cases, organizers say. That is, until they run into the nightmare of regulatory red tape that City Hall has created over the decades. As New Orleans’ market scene has grown, so has the difficulty organizers and vendors have had in dealing with the city, they say.
“We love this community, and we’re trying to create it, but it’s just getting so hard,” says Michelle Ingram, founder of Freret Street Market and Fest.
Even before the city started requiring bonds for markets and other special events in April, organizers say successfully putting on an event in the city has meant overcoming one regulatory hurdle after the next.
They cite inconsistencies in costs, requirements and even what they are told by city officials and employees, leading to an unwelcoming environment that discourages organizers from wanting to continue.
Anna Schnitzler, founder of artist nonprofit Bayou Yacht Club, said it all became too much to continue. While the bond requirement was the breaking point, they felt like it was becoming harder and harder to host an art market in the city. Bayou Yacht Club shut down their markets in June.
“The inconsistencies and unpredictability of the event permitting process as a whole have made it untenable to host an art market in this city,” Schnitzler told the New Orleans City Council earlier this month.
Last-minute surprises
Lisa Tourtelot and others started planning a street festival for the Veterans of Foreign Wars of the U.S. (VFW) 10 months out. Early on they went to the New Orleans Police Department to ask them to sign off on the event, since they were going to close streets during it. Tourtelot says NOPD told them they weren’t required to have officers there.
According to Tourtelot, a month before the event, the city told them they actually would need to hire several police officers, including a supervisor, for a longer period of time than the hours of their event.
Tourtelot says the cost of doing so came out to around $3,500. That alone was twice the budget for their event.
“It felt like we were being extorted,” she says. “But we decided to move forward with it anyway, only to have NOPD then turn around the day before our event and say, nope, we don’t have any officers who can stand this duty, so we’re not going to sign off on this.”
Luckily, one of the members of the planning team found a workaround in the nick of time.
That was at the same time they were trying to figure out the city’s then brand-new implementation of the bond policy. They had trouble even finding someone at the Bureau of Revenue office who knew the details of the policy. They finally figured it out and secured a bond — mere days before the event started.
“We got the NOPD sign off by the skin of our teeth. We got the bond by the skin of our teeth. All of this was literally coming down to like those 36 hours before the event, and for something that we had been planning for almost a year,” Tourtelot says. “We just got this sense over and over and over again that the city was overtly hostile to these kinds of events.”
The Cantrell administration did not respond to a request for comment on this or any other issue organizers and vendors raised to Gambit.
The waiting area for the permit office at New Orleans City Hall.
‘It’s just this huge middle finger’
Other organizers say they also have felt hostility from the city when trying to get permitted for events.
When Bayou Yacht Club was trying to host an art market earlier this year as part of the Champagne Stroll at Magazine Street, Schnitzler says the city misunderstood the type of event they were putting on.
City employees “were like snarky with me and telling me that I was trying to host a parade. They were accusatory almost about it,” Schnitzler says.
She says her story is just one of many.
“I’ve heard so many stories too about vendors who have gone to City Hall and been treated very poorly trying to get the license, and their experiences were consistent in some ways, and then it was inconsistent in whether or not they were going to be able to get it,” she says.
To get many permits, organizers and vendors must physically visit City Hall. And although the city touts a “One-Stop Shop” permitting office, they often end up going back and forth between different city departments to get the permits they need.
When they arrive at City Hall, the One-Stop Shop permitting office waiting area is furnished with cushion-less boxy, modular seats resembling merchandise display tables.
“It’s like you walk in, and it’s just this huge middle finger,” Tourtelot says, “like, ‘We don’t want you here, and since you’re here, we’re going to make you as uncomfortable as humanly possible.’”
Patrons shop for art and flea-market finds during the inaugural Peter & Paul Piety Market at Hotel Peter & Pau in 2023.
Vendors struggling too
Vendors say getting licensed to sell art and goods at special events is no walk in the park, either.
Schnitzler, who also sells stationery and art at markets, says vendors need two separate licenses to vend at a market, a home-based business occupational license to do business in the city in general and a special event permit.
According to Schnitzler, they also need two separate tax accounts with the city, in addition to a sales tax account with the state, and to file returns monthly, even if they don’t sell anything that month.
“Most artists are unaware of how this works, how to pay or who to ask for help,” Schnitzler says.
Dre Glass, a vendor and market organizer, says when she was applying for an occupational license for her hot sauce and preserves business Once Around the Kitchen during the pandemic, the city rejected it for months.
When they finally sent her the license, it was already expired, she says.
“I emailed the guy … I was like, ‘My dude, this is expired,’ and the response I got back was, ‘No, it isn’t,’” Glass says. “This took, like, six weeks to clear up.”
Then all of a sudden, she received a mysterious manila envelope in the mail.
“It just showed up in the mail, this unmarked envelope with what looked like a second grader’s handwriting addressed to me, not to the business. There was no stamp on it,” she says. “It was a reused, like 8×11 manila envelope. It was taped shut.”
She had no idea what it was or that it was from the city until she opened it.
“I almost threw it in the trash, and it was my occupational license,” she says.
Permitting complications
Permits to vend at special events are $50 yearly, but it’s not as simple as buying a permit and being covered for a year.
Vendors can’t get their permit to sell at special events until an event organizer accepts them into an event and includes them on a list of event vendors the organizer gives to the city.
Vendors also have to go to City Hall in person, which can be hard for people who work during the day and people who have limited transportation access.
“It just becomes a really frustrating and just an annoying task,” Glass says.
All business licenses expire on Dec. 31, creating a backlog of licenses the city must renew. It’s also unfortunate timing for those business owners who get licensed later in the year to sell over the winter holiday season.
Ingram, of Freret Market, says she’s brought the issue up at multiple meetings with city officials.
Organizers and vendors also complain that sometimes the city doesn’t give special events permits until the day before or even the day of the event.
It’s “just a ridiculous, worrisome thing,” Glass says. “These are small businesses.”
Marketgoers in 2022.
Reputation for red tape
Organizers say the red tape keeps some small business owners in the area from vending in New Orleans.
“I have lost countless vendors because of the process to actually obtain the special event occupational license from the city,” Ingram says. “It’s overwhelming. It’s burdensome.”
Tourtelot experienced the same thing when trying to recruit vendors for her veteran-focused festival.
“When we would tell them where the event was, they would just go, ‘Oh no, no, no. I have to do all these things in order to be legally square with the city of New Orleans … so I just don’t bother with these events,’” she says.
As a result, they lost out on several potential vendors, including veteran-owned businesses.
These hurdles can make playing by the rules difficult, especially for brand new business owners who may be learning how to make their first sales.
Organizers and vendors say the city should make the special events permitting process simpler and more consistent and provide education classes and resources to walk people through the steps needed. They also want more permits to be available online rather than in-person only.
“In a city that has had something like the French Market for 200 years, you’d think we’d be able to figure it out,” Glass says.
