ACLU: Protesters' rights were violated

New Orleans police officers improperly interfered with a peaceful demonstration outside a Bourbon Street restaurant on two occasions last month, the American Civil Liberties Union asserted Thursday in a letter to the New Orleans Police Department.

The officers' actions, effectively disrupting a protest in front of Tony Moran's restaurant, were in violation of the protesters' free speech rights, the ACLU stated.

The letter asked NOPD Superintendent Warren Riley to provide training to officers about the constitutional protections in the First Amendment.

The protests were held by the Restaurant Opportunities Center, a group that advocates for restaurant industry workers, said Katie Schwartzmann, legal director at the Louisiana ACLU office.

Tony Moran's did not respond to a request for comment about the protests.

NOPD officials disputed the ACLU's account of what happened, saying that during the first protest on Oct. 23, officers only instructed protesters that the ordinances in the French Quarter prohibit use of a megaphone, according to Bob Young, a department spokesman.

During the Oct. 29 protest, officers merely instructed protesters that they were not allowed to distribute leaflets because of a city ordinance that prohibits commercial leafleting in the French Quarter, Young said.

The pamphlets distributed by the protesters had a phone number of an attorney on them, so were considered by the officers on the scene to be an advertisement, Young said.

In neither case did the police disrupt the protests, he said.

But Schwartzmann, who attended the protests as an observer, said that the fliers only had the phone number of the advocacy group and were clearly not commercial in nature.

Police actions ended up disrupting the protests, she said.

"It is a problem of them not training the officers on the fact that people have a right to protest," Schwartzmann said.

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Laura Maggi can be reached at lmaggi@timespicayune.com or

504.826.3316.