Some Soulard Residents Want to Cancel Mardi Gras 2007

Today I got an email about a meeting to be held tomorrow in Soulard concerning next years’ Mardi Gras. Some want it canceled!

Soulard Residents Form Ad Hoc Committee
Will Present Statement at Upcoming Mardi Gras Forum

A group of long-time Soulard residents have formed an ad hoc committee to address neighborhood concerns about Mardi Gras with the hope of cancelling the 2007 event.

The group will read a statement at Mardi Gras Inc.’s annual Mardi Gras Forum to be held on Thursday, March 30th, 2006 at 7:00 p.m. The forum will be held in the Boilermaker’s Union Hall at 1547 South Broadway. [Enter through the back door, behind the hall, off the alley/parking lot area next to Quizno’s.

The group came together and formed the committee when several residents, fearful for their safety and that of their neighbors, outraged at the destruction of their private property, and discouraged by the general disrespect of the neighborhood by Mardi Gras planners and attendees, decided it was time to join together and speak out against the event. They believe that Mardi Gras has increasingly become an overly promoted, dangerous and out-of-hand event that the current event promoter, Mardi Gras, Inc., cannot or is unwilling to adequately oversee and one in which the police force unwittingly, is hard-pressed to manage and contain.

Over the past weeks, the committee has contacted a larger group of concerned neighborhood citizens who will be present at the Forum and will stand together with committee members, united in their position to permanently remove Mardi Gras from the historic Soulard neighborhood.

WHAT: Mardi Gras Inc.’s Mardi Gras Forum
WHEN: Thursday, March 30, 2006; 7:00 p.m.
WHERE: Boilermaker’s Union Hall at 1547 South Broadway in Soulard
Entrance from the alley/parking lot at the rear of the building, [next to Quizno’s]

I enjoy Mardi Gras but will be the first to admit that it is something I go to, it doesn’t come to me and my home. I cannot attend the meeting but I expect to get a copy of the statement to publish here.

– Steve