Amid the pandemic, New Orleans artists have struggled to find places to sell their work.
So some of them decided to take matters into their own hands: They banded together to form the Bayou Yacht Club, a nonprofit that hosts free outdoor art markets around the city.
Over the years, they have hosted both smaller events at local businesses and larger markets featuring more than 50 artists at locations like Lafitte Greenway.
“Everything felt bleak during the pandemic, and we saw how much the arts and community was needed when it was taken away, and that’s what sparked all of this,” founder Anna Schnitzler said.
Similar markets have popped up around town, joining the city’s existing markets. They range in size from a few friends selling wares on the sidewalk to larger, regular events held at breweries, churches and other locations. Some feature home cooks, craft makers, live musicians and other vendors.
In recent years, markets have become an increasingly popular pastime among residents and a way for many families to make a living in a tough economic environment.
Bayou Yacht Club Market
But New Orleans’ vibrant market scene may soon be darkened by the administration of Mayor LaToya Cantrell, who this spring resurrected a little-known law from more than half a century ago, requiring market organizers to act as de facto bill collectors for participating vendors.
Organizers will now be required to pay a small percentage of the $10,000 to $20,000 deposit up front, and if all exhibitors at an event don’t pay their sales tax on time, they could be liable for the full $10,000 to $20,000.
As a result, Bayou Yacht Club decided to close the market.
“They said, ‘By the way. [a bond for] “They’re like, ‘OK, never mind. We don’t need an event permit,'” Schnitzler said.
Organizers of markets around the city, including the popular Freret Market, also said they were evaluating whether they could continue.
“All the market producers are kind of shaken up at the moment,” said Michelle Ingram, founder of Freret Street Market and Freret Fest.
The change is one of several steps the Cantrell administration has taken in recent years to crack down on small businesses in the city.
In March 2023, they began targeting vendors under the Claiborne overpass, a popular stop on the Second Line. In July of the same year, they targeted vendors along St. Claude Street. Starting last fall, they set their sights on Bourbon Street, where the vendors are quite different.
“It feels punitive, to be honest,” Schnitzler said. “It feels like an extreme measure.”
Part of this feeling is the result of a lack of transparency and clarity: Market organizers said the city did not communicate with them before or after the decision to resume enforcement of the bond policy, and they only found out about it after they applied for permits or from other market organizers.
Cantrell officials also have offered little in the way of plain-language guidance on who is and isn’t eligible. For example, the city has not said whether smaller markets held in private venues such as bars or churches will have to buy bonds.
The policy is not the result of new legislation, but rather a decision by the Cantrell administration to begin enforcing an older law dating back to 1956 that had not been implemented for many years.
The Cantrell administration would not discuss what prompted the change, except to say that the law “had been consistently implemented until the structural change” for Mayor LaToya Cantrell’s spokeswoman, Leatrice Dupre.
Vendors sell clothing at the Bayou Yacht Club Art Market.
Dupre did not specify what “structural changes” he was referring to, but responsibility for complying with the law was transferred from the Department of Revenue to the Department of Safety and Permits about a decade ago.
But it’s unclear whether the city regularly enforced the law before the change, and if so, whether it applied to smaller markets. For example, the original law repeatedly uses the word “show,” leading one to speculate that it was intended to ensure exhibitors at large events like car shows were paying city sales taxes.
Ingram said she started hosting the market on Freret Street in 2007, but only found out about the bond requirement this spring.
Market organizers said the city began seeking bonds to secure special event permits in April. A PDF document of the policy on the city’s website also appears to have been created in April.
The document outlines the deposits that special event organizers must pay before the city will approve their event. If an event has three exhibitors or fewer, organizers must purchase a cash deposit worth $250 per exhibitor. Organizers will pay a percentage of that amount directly to the city.
If a special event will have three or more vendors, the organizers will be required to purchase a “performance bond” from an insurance company for between $10,000 and $20,000, depending on the number of vendors. This bond requires the organizers to ensure that all vendors at the event pay sales tax.
Purchasing a $10,000 bond can cost anywhere from $50 to $1,500, depending on the insurance company issuing the bond, but what’s raising alarm bells among organizers is the risk that all vendors could be held liable for $10,000 to $20,000 if they don’t pay sales tax on time.
There’s also confusion about how long vendors have to pay sales tax. In the same email, Cantrell spokesman Dupre said both that “all participating vendors must pay the 5% sales tax by the end of the event” and that “participating vendors have four months to pay the sales tax.”
The New Birth Brass Band will be performing at the Bayou Yacht Club’s 2022 Carnival event.
The Cantrell administration says the rule is necessary to ensure that vendors at the market pay sales tax, but it’s not clear whether this is actually a problem.
For starters, sellers in these markets usually don’t make much profit. In smaller markets, sellers might make around $100, Schnitzler said. In larger markets, sellers might make $2,000 on a good day.
When asked how much sales tax the city believes it is losing out on by vendors not paying sales tax on sales made at special events, Dupre said, “No.”
Market organizers say even if they can afford the initial costs of the bond, they won’t be able to pay the $10,000 to $20,000 that could come up if one of the vendors doesn’t pay sales tax to the city on time.
Many of these markets are run by nonprofits trying to cover operating costs — Ingram said $20,000 is more than they typically make in a year, and that any money left over will be donated to community organizations.
Additionally, organizing the market is a lot of work, and organizers say they don’t want to take on the responsibility of going to vendors and asking them for proof that they’ve paid sales tax. Not only would it be an added hassle, but organizers say it would feel intrusive.
“To be honest with you, that’s not our job as market producers,” said Ingram, who runs Freret Market, which has about 80 vendors. “Our job is to produce the market, and it’s the vendors’ job to file taxes with the city.”
Likewise, Schnitzler said, doing so would go against the reasons why artists formed the Bayou Yacht Club in the first place.
She said many of their vendors are LGBTQ people, people of color and mothers who are trying to make money without having to pay for child care.
“Given that the whole point of these events is to empower artists and small vendors to sell their wares, this is a huge micromanagement effort,” Schnitzler said. “It’s not a company trying to avoid sales tax. It’s an artist trying to make an honest living.”
Since 2020, Bayou Yacht Club has hosted a number of art markets.
Market organizers say they are already finding it difficult to get permits from the city to hold the event.
The city sometimes doesn’t issue permits until just before an event, sometimes the night before or even the day itself, and prices change frequently, he said.
Schnitzler said that when the Bayou Yacht Club rented market space from the New Orleans Recreation Development Commission, the city would sometimes charge an extra $1,000 to rent the same space it had previously rented for the same period of time. Sometimes the city required event insurance and security, and sometimes it didn’t.
“The requirements were different each time,” Schnitzler says, “and it got more and more expensive.”
When she applied for a permit last year to host an art market at the Magazine Street Champagne Stroll, the city thought she was trying to host a parade, she said.
“We had to be very careful about how we worded the event so that it didn’t seem like we were hosting a parade or trying to do something illegal with the champagne,” Schnitzler said. “It was just too difficult to continue.”
It’s not easy for sellers either, as they have to obtain multiple licenses and set up sales tax accounts, as well as pay fees to sell in each market.
“We’ve lost countless vendors because of the process of getting a special events business permit from the city,” Ingram said. “It’s overwhelming and burdensome.”
For example, Ingram said, market vendors are required to pay $50 to the city, but no matter how late in the year they get an annual license to operate at special events, that license expires on Dec. 31. With all business licenses expiring at the same time, the city has trouble issuing new licenses.
“The paperwork, licenses, permits, taxes and fees are overburdening and destroying New Orleans’ local cultural economy,” Ingram said. “I’m not saying we don’t have a responsibility to cover the costs of hosting events in the city, but it’s getting to an extreme.”
Ingram said it will cost between $4,000 and $5,000 to host the Frere Market, including permits, insurance, electricity and other infrastructure costs.
So some market organizers, wanting to keep a low profile, ultimately choose to forgo the permit process altogether.
“We have to pay more and more and do more and more to stay the same,” Ingram said. “They’re more expensive than the only thing they’re using to promote the city.”
The history of Freret Market dates back to 2007.
In addition to the Bayou Yacht Club closure, the New Orleans Riverbend Rotary Club, which currently runs the Freret Market and the annual Freret Street Festival, must decide by the end of August whether it will be able to reopen its monthly market this fall.
Ingram, who runs Zeus Place, a pet boarding business, remembers starting Freret Market in 2007 as a way to revitalize the area after Hurricane Katrina.
The market had poster boards displaying properties for sale and the real estate agents who served them. People came to the market and left hoping to buy a home in the neighborhood or start a business there.
“The presence of a market and a sense of community in this area is one of the reasons Freret Street became what it is today,” Ingram says. “People stopped using it as a thoroughfare, slowed down, bought vacant storefronts and started making their dreams come true.”
Markets throughout New Orleans have given artists and vendors the opportunity to earn an income. Some use the markets to supplement income from other jobs, while others take the chance to leave their 9-to-5 jobs altogether in favor of a more flexible schedule.
“When you have kids, it’s really hard to go to work and pay for child care,” said Schnitzler, a mother. “So, as an artist, being able to show up to these events and have someone take your kids or bring them to you (is a good thing).”
It also helps bring the community together and gives artists a chance to connect with customers.
“It’s really sad to think that this could disappear because of government red tape, and that we’ll lose some of the charm that sets New Orleans apart from Houston, Dallas and Baltimore, Maryland,” Ingram said. “These little markets are what make New Orleans New Orleans, and if we can’t afford to create them, they’ll be gone forever.”
