WikimediaNEW ORLEANS (AP) — Residents of New Orleans' French Quarter have overwhelmingly approved a new five-year sales tax to keep more than 30 state troopers patrolling their historic district.
Complete but unofficial returns show that nearly 1,000 people voted, and 78 percent of them voted for the tax. It will add about a quarter of a penny to each dollar spent at stores in the neighborhood.
Supporters say tourists will pay most of the $2 million a year the tax is expected to bring in.
It raises the overall sales tax rate in the French Quarter to 9.25 percent for retail and nearly 10 percent for restaurants.
Extra troopers have patrolled the neighborhood since the summer of 2014, when a woman was killed and nine other people wounded in a gunfight on Bourbon Street.