The Royal Frenchmen Hotel has stopped presenting live music, as apparently it was never permitted by the City of New Orleans to host performances.

In a Facebook post on Tuesday, March 22, hotel management wrote, “The Royal Frenchmen Hotel, which has been a supporter of musicians and artists through COVID 19, Hurricane Ida, and beyond, is closed indefinitely, due to an attack on live music and events at our venue… we are imploring our community to stand with us and preserve the rights of our venue to continue bringing music and other cultural events to our corner of Frenchmen Street.”

A “community discussion” scheduled for March 23 at the hotel was postponed due to many of the staff volunteering to assist with relief efforts in Arabi where a tornado wrought extensive damage the night before.

Tyler Daly. Photo: Royal Frenchmen Hotel Facebook page

Tyler Daly, who claims he is the owner of Royal Frenchmen Bar and Hotel, LLC, spoke with OffBeat about the abrupt end of live music at the venue where musicians have been performing throughout the pandemic. Daly says that special permits for indoor performances in the bar and outdoor music on the sidewalk and courtyard were obtained from the city. The hotel lies beyond the Frenchmen Street Cultural District zoning overlay where live music is permitted in venues between Esplanade Avenue and Royal Street, but Daly says special permits have allowed an exception to that zoning rule during the pandemic, as well as for special events.

Tom Thayer, owner of d.b.a. New Orleans, half a block away from the Royal Frenchmen Hotel, had started presenting live music in the area now occupied by the street’s art market. “We were very cognizant of not having outdoor music without permission from the city. The city was very cooperative with us, but we stopped having music outside because we were having staffing issues, and I decided to concentrate on the club. We also were careful not have music late into the evening.”

After more than four years of employment at the Royal Frenchmen, rising in rank from event bartender to general manager, Daly said he purchased the business from building owner Hugh Stiel in January. The Louisiana Secretary of State’s website still lists Stiel as the current owner of the business.

Daly said the Royal Frenchmen has presented live music since it opened in 2017, but an examination of the paperwork submitted to the city in 2014 by the hotel’s developer (Stiel) via his architectural firm to acquire a zoning change—from HMC1 to HMC2 when the building was converted from Boys Town, a social service agency, to a hotel—specifically states that any “cocktail lounge in the property would not be set up for live music.” Frenchmen Street has a specific zoning overlay that covers only businesses on Frenchmen in the 400 to 600 block. The Royal Frenchmen is in the 700 block of Frenchmen Street, outside the zoning overlay.

Daly says he started booking acts three years ago and invited neighboring musicians from Treme to perform. When the pandemic hit, Daly tried to look for ways to keep the musicians employed at a time when Frenchmen Street was largely boarded up and vacant. He launched a series of livestream concerts from the hotel that allowed musicians to earn tips through cash apps.

Eventually many of the artists began busking on the sidewalk and limited audiences who complied with social distancing were permitted on site after Daly supplied the city with floor plans and met protocols for hand-sanitation stations and contact tracing. Special events permits were issued in July 2020 and renewed twice, said Daly, but none were supplied thereafter. But Daly said phone calls to the Department of Safety and Permits repeatedly assured him that no problem existed.

“We got a lot of support from the community thanking me—thanking me for giving life to a soulless place, bringing them out of depression,” said Daly. “I saw Frenchmen Street go completely dark overnight, and it had been a scary, eerie place.”

Noise complaints have been called in over the years by residential neighbors and police would appear at the hotel, but Daly said each time the officers would call an unnamed source and be assured that the hotel was in compliance. Daly believed the complaints were coming from “a few bad actors who were disrupting a greater good. I kind of let it go.” However, reports from the neighborhood association say that complainants have lived in the same housing near the hotel since before the Boys Town property was converted to the Royal Frenchmen. There apparently has been a history of complaints to the city about music at the hotel during late nights as well.

Daly told Gambit that the crackdown on the Royal Frenchmen is due to noise complaints from a few neighbors who have taken issue with the live music venue after he took ownership.

Police also arrived on June 22, 2021, but this time they demanded a permit, which had not been issued.

“The next day I called in to the city to get a copy of the permit I had never received, but the person who answered the phone said, ‘Oh, you saw my letter.’” The Department of Safety and Permits had mailed Stiel a cease-and-desist letter prohibiting live music at Royal Frenchmen both indoors and outdoors with notice that the venue had never been permitted.

“A business under your ownership, Royal Frenchmen Hotel and Bar at 700 Frenchmen St., is advertising and selling tickets, for live entertainment in the courtyard. This activity is in violation of the City of New Orleans Municipal Code. Any outdoor entertainment requires that the host obtain a Special Event Permit. This location currently does not hold such a permit, and the City of New Orleans will not issue any Special Events Permits for outdoor entertainment at this location due to its history of complaints and proximity to a residential district. You are ordered to cease and desist hosting or allowing any entertainment anywhere other than interior spaces, such as a ballroom. Any future violations may result in enforcement activities including but not limited to the suspension or revocation of the business’s ABO license.”

Gambit quoted Daly as saying, “We’re basically being railroaded … [and] treated like a pariah,” citing the fact that the hotel and bar is one of the only Black-owned businesses on Frenchmen Street. The city requested that sidewalk concerts end several months ago but the hotel continued to host concerts (under $1,000 “special events” permits) in the hotel’s courtyard. “The only thing that’s changed since pre-pandemic was outdoor music…and the ownership,” Daly told Gambit. “I am the only person of color who’s in ownership on Frenchmen.” Daly told Gambit that the crackdown on the Royal Frenchmen is due to noise complaints from a few neighbors who have taken issue with the live music venue after he took ownership. He also claims the neighborhood association is circulating a petition to deny Royal Frenchmen Bar & Hotel any future opportunity for live music.

“The end result seems to be a moment of frustration where the city is just saying this needs to stop now…in every single way we had complied by making adjustments every time the city called, be it COVID compliant, location compliant, hours compliant,” Daly says. “I tried to be as compliant as we possibly could…anything they asked me to do, I did.” But apparently Daly was not able to obtain the proper permits to present live music.

Gambit quoted a spokesman for the office of Mayor LaToya Cantrell who stated “The Royal Frenchmen was not shut down by the City, or by the NOPD. Neither NOPD nor Safety and Permits mandated closure. The business made that decision. NOPD did have community liaison officers visit the site to gather information based on community complaints, but did not take any enforcement action.”

Daly believes complaints from neighbors is perhaps a “fear that because it’s over the line of Royal and Frenchmen that if we do well and are successful that someone will come along and want to buy the next spot and the next spot after that—that more live music venues will open on Frenchmen.” The hotel is on the corner of Royal and Frenchmen Streets (just outside the Frenchmen zoning overlay) across from Washington Square Park in a block that’s across the street from and in the same block as a residential district.

Daly says the business faces financial peril due to contracted weddings in the weeks and months ahead that expect live music as part of the ceremony. “The city is denying us any kind of permitting whatsoever.” Permits for outdoor music and weddings/second line events require different types of permits.

“They’re picking away at things we can’t do until eventually we’ll be left with nothing. I don’t know where this is coming from and why it’s us that can’t have music at all on Frenchmen Street.” Bar patrons and musicians are protesting the shut-down  and the Royal Frenchmen Hotel has also launched a petition on its Facebook page), but it appears that music is a thing of the past at the Royal Frenchmen Hotel.