Apparently Only Bamboula's Wants Bamboula's To Become A Nightclub

Frenchmen Street nightclub-wannabe Bamboula's sure does know how to upset its neighbors. Richard Webster reports that the purported restaurant and theater, which opened in 2013 to complaints of being too nightclubby with fish bowl sized drinks, blocked off public parking spaces, barkers, and illegal loud-ass music, is now hoping to operate as a nightclub, like, legally.  There is just one problem, the City Planning Commission and a good majority of Frenchmen neighbors and business owners including the Faubourg Marigny Improvement Association don't want that to happen.

In fact, the CPC appears in favor of denying a requested permit change (though it's been deferred to February 10) because it would go against the Arts and Culture Overlay District, which controls how many nightclubs can operate on Frenchmen, which is pretty much at its maximum limit right now. Also, size-wise, Bamboula's is too large a space to become a nightclub on Frenchmen, since the owners also want to have the downstairs theater (where no booze is allowed to be sold at all) into the nightclub as well at 5,234 square feet total (the overlay only allows for a limit off 4,000 square feet).

Despite all this, the owner of the building that houses Bamboula's, Andre Laborde, who has lived on Frenchmen Street since the 1950s-- is fighting on behalf of the business, claiming they'll make more money as a nightclub and that basically all people come to Frenchmen for is live music anyways.  Owners Guy Olano, Jr. and Joseph Ascani, who also run Temptations, Fiorella's, among more bars here and in Florida, have not commented on the situation.