Baton Rouge Police are cracking down on the number of floats in Mardi Gras and Wearin’ of the Green St. Patrick’s Day parades, due to creeping increases in their length. “It’s getting out of hand,” says Cpl. L’Jean McKneely, a police spokesman. While city parade permits cap the number of floats at 75, McKneely says there were 130 floats in last year’s Spanish Town Mardi Gras parade. Spanish Town parade officials dispute McKneelys comments, saying there have never been more than 100 floats in a parade. McKneely says in some cases, people were showing up at the start of parades with a registration fee and getting numbers pinned on their trucks. “Parades that were supposed to last three hours were lasting five hours,” he says, making it difficult to plan for the overtime hours officers accumulate working the parades. McKneely says police are working with parade organizers to give them up to 100 floats. “We’re going back to giving them an inch, not a mile,” he says. —Timothy Boone
This story has been changed since it was first published
