Too Hot for CCTV?
City, “Girls Gone Wild” Producers Reach Agreement on French Quarter Security Cameras

September 14th, 2007 | C-T in "Where Y'at", News, Politics/Crime, Post K

Editors’ Note: This article originally appeared in Where Y’at Magazine.

New Orleans is joining the ranks of London, New York, Chicago, and other cities around the world that use closed-circuit television (CCTV) cameras to deter crime.

But with a key difference.

The cameras in the cash-strapped Crescent City are being paid for entirely by private money put up by the producers of the popular “Girls Gone Wild” video series.

Plans for the network of sixty security cameras in and around the French Quarter were announced at joint press conference on Bourbon Street by New Orleans Mayor C. Ray Nagin and “Girls Gone Wild” founder Joe Francis.

Calling the cameras “an historic example of public-private partnership,” Mayor Nagin said he sees these wandering, robotic eyes as being a critical piece of the city’s overall crime-reduction strategy, particularly in the tourist-laden French Quarter.

“I say to all the pickpockets, drug dealers, drunk and disorderlies, and other nefarious elements in our fair city: we got our eyes on you,” said Nagin.

Joe Francis, who has personally filmed more than 3 dozen “Girls Gone Wild” videos on the streets of New Orleans called the cameras “state-of-the-art.”

“These cameras will have motion sensors and low-light lenses,” said Francis.

“We can see the entire French Quarter, including hidden alleys, dark corners of bars, and of course, the balconies on Bourbon Street. Everywhere…um…crime could happen.”

“We’ll be able to watch over every single person in the French Quarter, be she blonde or brunette, petite or plump, 32-B or 44-DD.”

“And when you zoom in, the level of detail is just amazing,” he added.