NEW ORLEANS — The Krewe of Chewbacchus is scaling back its route, possibly due to police staffing. The change comes about 24 hours before it's set to roll; they're scheduled to start Saturday at 7:00 in the Marigny.
We visited a stretch of St. Claude Avenue that was expecting the Chewbacchus parade this weekend, but they will go another year without. The owner of Arabella and Kajun's on St. Claude said Chewbacchus is typically the biggest business night of the year for him.
The route is now essentially cut in half, eliminating St. Claude Avenue and Elysian Fields, and now only going through the French Quarter.
The Krewe says NOPD was unable to staff the whole route, but NOPD says staffing for the parade is not mandatory and staffed by officers looking to earn extra money through the paid detail.
The owner of Arabella's Casa Di Pasta on St. Claude did all of its ordering earlier this week and spent the money to be staffed up and prepped for its biggest business day of the year.
"I don't want to hear anybody defend this decision," says Mowgli Pierlas. "If this decision needed to be made, it needed to be made two or three weeks ago. Not two days before the busiest day of the year. After we've spent all the money, after we've staffed up, after we've done everything. I've had extra people here all week prepping and making sure that we had everything that we needed."
The Krewe of Chewbacchus says it will be possibly changing its start time for the parade as a result of the last-minute route change. We'll let you know as soon as that decision is made.