Commentary: Restaurant deserves city help instead of ridiculous roadblock

Doing business in New Orleans has never been easy. Who you know and where you spread the dough has long been key.

Historically, it is more important that your operation matches with the mindset of Crescent City cognoscente. If the insiders to the corridors of power don't want you in, you're out.

This mindset has to change. We can no longer afford it.

Developers and contractors have complained regularly to CityBusiness, particularly post-Katrina, about the costly delays caused by mindless red tape. Some have killed projects because they simply got lost in the bureaucrat jungle.

Others, however, fight back.

Take the ridiculous case of New Orleans restaurateur Greg Sonnier and his wife, Mary Sonnier. They spent $700,000 buying the old Uptowner reception hall in hopes of relocating their famed Gabrielle restaurant, which flooded post-Katrina despite its perch on Esplanade Ridge.

The Sonniers have a license to operate their planned new business but some Uptown neighbors, led by former Councilman Eddie Sapir, decided it might bring riff-raff, traffic, excessive noise and other assorted ills they associate with fine dining.