NEW ORLEANS — A police station in New Orleans' French Quarter will be designated a vocational technical school in a move that will instantly outlaw gun possession in the surrounding area — including a stretch of bar-lined Bourbon Street — as a new Louisiana law eliminating the need for concealed carry firearm permits takes effect.
Police Superintendent Anne Kirkpatrick announced the measure at a Monday news conference at the 8th District police station on the Quarter's Royal Street. However, the move may face legal challenges. The state attorney general raised doubts about the plan.
State law forbids carrying concealed weapons within 1,000 feet (305 meters) of such a facility, Kirkpatrick said. That radius from the station will cover a large section of the Quarter, including several blocks of Bourbon Street.
Kirkpatrick said the station includes a classroom and is used for training. She described the station as a ''satellite'' of the city's police academy.
''I wouldn't call it a work-around,'' District Attorney Jason Williams told reporters gathered in the lobby of the two-story, 19th century building. ''It's using laws that have always been on the books to deal with a real and current threat to public safety.''
Designating the 8th District station a school is just one way of giving police officers more leeway to stop and search people suspected of illegally carrying a weapon in the Quarter, Kirkpatrick said.
She also listed other facets of state law that could allow the arrest of someone carrying a weapon in the tourist district. They include bans on carrying a gun in a bar or by anyone with a blood alcohol level of .05%. That's less than the .08% considered proof of intoxication in drunk-driving cases.
State lawmakers earlier this year passed legislation to make Louisiana one of the latest states to do away with a permit requirement for carrying a concealed handgun. Past efforts to do so were vetoed by former Democratic Gov. John Bel Edwards. But the new Republican governor, Jeff Landry, supported and signed the new law.