NEW ORLEANS — It wasn’t the Phantom Menance that shortened Saturday’s Intergalactic Krewe of Chewbacchus parade, it was a shortage of police officers.
Just three days before the parade was set to roll, krewe overlords got word the city was cutting out the St. Claude Avenue leg of their route through the Marigny.
“We wanted to go by those businesses, those bars and restaurants and give our members a chance to have an extended parade experience like in previous years,” Chewbacchus Overlord Brooke Ethridge said.
Instead of starting at St. Claude Avenue and Homer Plessy Way, the 1800-member krewe will now begin at Royal Street and Elysian Fields Avenue, then continue into the French Quarter.
“If we had more advanced notice from the city and from NOPD, I think that it would have gone a long way in us being able to make adjustments more easily,” Chewbacchus Overlord Aryanna Gamble said.
Most other New Orleans parades had already been shortened once because of fewer police officers, medics, and other first responders to handle the crowds. According to the city, shortening Chewbacchus was not a manpower issue, it was a lack of police officers signing up to work the paid detail.
Fraternal Order of Police spokesman Donovan Livacarri says having about 1,000 officers in a department built for 1,600 makes it harder to get enough cops to fill detail slots.
“There’s no getting around the fact that it will be thin, manpower is going to be thin, no matter how you cut it,” Livacarri said.
Livacarri added, more parades could also find their routes shortened.
“Mardi Gras is upon us. I don’t know if we’re going to be able to secure assistance from neighboring agencies. Out of all the remedies that might be available to the police department to facilitate the parade coverage, shortening the routes is certainly a more feasible goal than creating people.”
Officials with Krewe du Vieux and Krewedelusion which both parade next weekend have not heard if their routes will be shortened for a second time as well.
“We’ve choreographed it down to the last detail as of a meeting last night,” said Lee Millikin, a parade captain with Krewe du Vieux. “So, it would be really difficult to change it yet again. I just hope that doesn’t happen.”
“It’s always a possibility,” Matte Coombs with Krewedelusion said. “I understand that, and we’ll roll with whatever it is, but we’re hoping that’s not going to be the case.”
Coombs added, a lot of things have been last minute this year.
"There’s been a lot of changes,” he said. “I honestly wasn’t entirely surprised. We’ve had some trouble and some changes getting our route set up.”
Millikin said this might be a good year for parade goers to be a little extra polite along the parade route.
“We all love our police. Maybe if there was something we could do to increase recruitment during our parade. That would be a clever thing to do. We do know that needs to happen.”
Chewbacchus organizers say the city and the NOPD deserve better.
“We want NOPD to be fully staffed, so they are comfortable and so events can go on,” Ethridge said.
Also happening this weekend, Mayor Latoya Cantrell will lead the Treme Sidewalk Steppers parade.
That second line parade, set to step off at noon on Sunday has not been shortened because of police manpower.
Chewbacchus rolls at 7 p.m. on Saturday.