Curfew lifted for famed region, other parts of New Orleans

12:00 AM CST on Friday, December 23, 2005

/ Associated Press

NEW ORLEANS – For the first time since Hurricane Katrina, the city's celebrated Bourbon Street bars and other businesses will be allowed to stay open all night tonight.

Mayor Ray Nagin lifted the city's 2 a.m. curfew for all areas west of the Industrial Canal. He also announced Wednesday that residents would be allowed to stay overnight in more parts of the city deemed safe for rebuilding.

The newly reopened areas include the city's Lakeview neighborhood near Lake Pontchartrain, where some homes flooded to the eaves after the nearby 17th Street Canal broke. Mr. Nagin said power, water and sewage service has been restored to areas west of the Industrial Canal, and residents from such neighborhoods should move back permanently as soon as they can repair their homes.

"Although these areas took on various levels of water, we are still optimistic that residents will return to the city," Mr. Nagin said.

Mr. Nagin said neighborhoods east of the Industrial Canal, including the devastated lower Ninth Ward, will continue to be off-limits between midnight and 6 a.m. But the new announcement effectively reopened 75 percent of the city, he said, although many homes in the reopened areas remain far from inhabitable.

Still, the mayor said, the recovery was showing signs of speeding up to a pace faster than predicted. He cited recent government and university surveys showing that 150,000 people are living in the city and that the population could be back to nearly 200,000 by the end of January, when several universities plan to reopen for the spring semester.

Bar and club owners had been upset about the curfew and expressed relief that they'll be able to stay open later.

"It's about time. It completely affected business," said Rio Hackford, who owns a popular live music venue in the French Quarter called One Eyed Jack's, as well as a small neighborhood bar in another part of town.

Mr. Hackford said a lot of bar business comes from people in the service industry who often do not leave work until after 1 a.m.

"Thank God it's happening before New Year's, before Mardi Gras," he said.

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