New Orleans is famous for its haunted history, and visitors looking for occult sites have flocked for decades to the city's historic French Quarter.
But lately, the demand for haunted tours and the number of companies offering them has skyrocketed — especially during the Halloween season — to the dismay of some longtime Vieux Carre residents.
Interest in haunted tours in New Orleans has grown in the last 10 years, partially thanks to shows like "American Horror Story: Coven," which was filmed in the city, and a growing fascination with serial killers spurred by documentaries and docuseries on Netflix and other streaming platforms. In the Crescent City, it has led to overpacked tours and more companies looking to get in on the action.
Those who live in the neighborhood have described an increasing number of tours gathering at the same time in the tight streets of the Quarter, creating disruptive noises and leaving behind trash, from empty go-cups to smoldering cigarette butts.
And though tour guide owners and residents have noticed an explosion of new walking tour companies over the last decade, city records show less than a dozen have active permits.?A spokesperson for Mayor LaToya Cantrell said the city is aware of a flood of unlicensed vendors.
Two tour groups line Royal Street on the corner of Ursaline Street on October 30,2024.?
Ghost tours 'very disruptive,' resident says
Some residents living in the lower Quarter near Esplanade Avenue, typically considered to be a more residential area, reported recently seeing up to 10 groups or more at a time on the same street.
A group of tourists led by a guide gaze at the infamous LaLaurie mansion on October 30, 2024.?
On the Wednesday before Halloween, four separate groups were?standing in front of the LaLaurie mansion at dusk, considered the "golden jewel" of New Orleans haunted tours thanks to its disturbing past.
The problem hasn't been this bad since the early 2000s, before the city put restrictions on walking tours, said Nathan Chapman, president of the neighborhood watch group Vieux Carre Property Owners, Residents, and Associates. Chapman has lived in the Quarter for 25 years.?
"There's parts of the Quarter that are as quiet as any part of the city, but for an hour and half at night it's very disruptive," Chapman said, referring to the tours' presence on his block.?
Other neighbors echoed Chapman's sentiments, lamenting about the noise from competing tours, crowds blocking sidewalks and tours that continue beyond 10 p.m., the city's required stop time.?
"I don't have a problem with reasonable tours, you know, I understand it's part of the tourist deal. But it's kind of getting overboard," said A.L. "Chip" Blondeau, another lower Quarter resident.?
David Knox, who has lived across from the LaLaurie mansion on Royal Street for the last four years, said the problem has become a year-round issue, though ghost tour crowds especially ramp up around Halloween.?
Sidney Smith, owner of Haunted History Tours, one of the longest-running ghost tour groups in the area, agrees that the number of tours and tour companies is growing out of hand.
But he said tours are an essential part of Quarter tourism.?
"I think some of the complaints are justified and some are not," Smith said.?
The LaLaurie mansion pictured at sunset the night before Halloween, October 30, 2024.?
The rules of walking tours
The delicate balancing act between protecting the French Quarter's residents and protecting tourists has been wrestled over for decades.
In the early 2000s, former New Orleans councilmember and later state representative Jackie Clarkson began her own crusade to clean up the Quarter. In 2003, she pushed to pass rules dictating how walking tours in the French Quarter could operate, limiting the number of people allowed on each tour, requiring individual tour groups to remain 50 feet apart, and instituting a 10 p.m. stop time.?
Current city ordinances allow 28 people per tour and require both tour guides and companies to be permitted by the city.?
Smith said that while his tour company works to comply with the city's rules, there are always bad actors.
The Haunted History Tours owner also said he's seen the number of tour companies in the city explode over the last decade, many of which are likely operating without required permits.
Currently, 11 walking tour guide companies have permits to operate in New Orleans, according to City Hall spokesperson Leatrice Dupre. There are 726 licensed tour guides.
Smith estimates that the number of tour companies operating is closer to 50. A Google search for "ghost tours in New Orleans" brings up 40 listed results.?
"If that's all the city has, then someone is ripping off the city," Smith said, referring to what he feels is a low number of permitted companies.?
"We are aware that there are many illegal tour companies and tour guides advertising and operating without being licensed," Dupre said in a statement.?
District C Councilmember Freddie King III, who represents the French Quarter and Algiers, couldn't be reached for comment.?
A call for more enforcement?
Both French Quarter residents and Smith feel the way to fix the oversaturation of ghost and haunted tours in the French Quarter is ultimately more enforcement, especially around monitoring group sizes and cracking down on unpermitted operations.?
"Nobody enforces it, that's the problem. It's like everything in New Orleans, you have all these rules, especially in the Quarter. And if people don't enforce it, hell then they know they can do it," Blondeau said.?
Knox said he'd like to see increased limits on the number of people allowed per group on walking tours, and residents like Chapman and Blondeau would also like to see additional regulations on the number of groups operating.?
"There really needs to be a limit on the amount of tours that can be out at any one time," Blondeau said.?