[Updates below]

At 20 minutes to midnight, I left the Mid-City bonfire, which – unless things changed drastically at midnight – was no longer the event it was. Part of the beauty of the bonfire celebration as it was prior to this year was its democratic, participatory nature. Everybody helped make it happen in their own way, whether by adding trees to the pile, racing around the fire, setting off fireworks, drumming, or spinning techno music on their porch. It was also decentralized. The event focused on one block, but there was no stage or single place where everything happened. Fireworks could go off right next to you or 10 feet away. And as I’ve written before, it was an event that hadn’t required much supervision – a fire truck to monitor the fire and protect houses did the trick for years, but all it ever did was put the fire out after a half-hour or so, which brought the bonfire evening to a reasonable ending.

Last night was all about security. Five or six squad cars patrolled Orleans Avenue, one with an officer who breathed heavily and disturbingly into his loudspeaker as he circled the blocks in question. More police cars shut down Orleans Avenue at some point. A SWAT truck was there. The fire department had its Hazmat/WMD unit there in case Osama decided to strike insidiously. Next to the bonfire enclosure where another six or seven police and fire department cars, and officers patrolled on foot.

With no fireworks, the event was entirely passive as people waited for NOFD to provide some entertainment for them. With the designated firepit safely barricaded away from people, real estate along the barricade was valuable property so people claimed it. Not only would there be no running around the fire, but there would be no running around the barricade around the fire.

I suspect that people who live in Mid-City and particularly those who lived nearby loved it because it became another Mardi Gras block party, with houses in the neighborhood hosting parties. And I suspect the many people there who’d never been to the bonfire before, it was a great event. The crowd was bigger than ever, and for many this looked like a less labor-intensive alternative to going to the Quarter on New Year’s Eve. But it isn’t what it was, and something beautiful was lost in the process of saving the fire. Now the city controls and directs something we once made for ourselves, and Dr. Bob’s “Be nice or leave” is an actual rule. Very sad.

[Update: 2:50 p.m.: Seriously, was there no media coverage of the bonfire? The Times-Picayune thought the controversy was worthy of coverage, but not the outcome? The television networks thought it was worth covering at 5 p.m. when nothing had happened, but as of a few moments ago, I couldn't find a story on it at Nola.com or any of the television stations' Web sites. In a story that was all about what would happen after the NOPD and NOFD took control of the event, skipping the last chapter of the story is really shamefully bad news judgment.]

[Update: 10:35 p.m.: Tonight WWL-TV had a short piece on the bonfire during its newscast. It was pretty puffy with pictures of smiling faces, a short interview with Virginia Blanque, and footage of two guys who jumped the barricade to throw a tree in the fire (and were arrested) and a woman who was arrested for obscenity (she jumped the barricade and ran naked around the fire).]

The Mid-City New Year’s Eve Bonfire is on again. After a meeting between the fire department and Mid-City representatives, efforts to make it safer were agreed on. According to the Times-Picayune:

The arrangement reached Tuesday calls for a controlled fire in a 12-by-12-foot area , surrounded by a 2-foot-high metal retaining wall, Woodridge said. Barricades surrounding the retaining wall will be set back a few additional feet from the fire. A welder’s cloth will cover the ground in the designated bullpen area, designed to catch any falling embers or ash.

Since fireworks aren’t permitted in Orleans Parish, fireworks will be prohibited.

The depressing thing about all of this is that the city found a way to insert itself in a meaningful way into an event that didn’t need it. For as long as anyone can remember, the bonfire has been going on without incident, but the city has decided that its supervision is required in a way that it never was before.

Equally depressing is how quickly and easily people agree with authority:

Virginia Blanque, vice president of the Mid-City Neighborhood Organization, said she and officials agreed a scaled-down bonfire is much better than no event at all.

“We worried we would have a bigger problem if people took matters into their own hands and tried to do it anyway, ” Blanque said. “People were angry and felt their tradition was being taken away.”

Blanque said the group needs only to secure a liability bond, which she said is a minor matter.

“Everything is a go, ” she said. But, she warned, this is not going to be like last year.

“We are at risk of losing this tradition if people don’t behave, ” she said.

According to Blanque, the things we used to do – shoot off fireworks, play near the fire – are now forms of misbehavior because the fire chief said so. Oh, and making a big fire is also now a form of misbehavior:

Discarded Christmas trees will keep the fire burning, but it will not be anywhere near as high as the infernos in previous years, Woodridge said.

“They had trees stacked up real high before, ” he said. “That won’t happen because we’ll be monitoring the situation.”

Moderate Christmas, everybody, and have a Tepid New Year!

[Updated 9:55. See the end of the post.]

After today’s story in the Times-Picayune about the Mid-City bonfire, it’s time to let the bonfire go. Not because of anything the story said, but because the event’s danger will go up. Until now, it’s an event that has spread by word of mouth to people who would get it, people who share values. As such, it has been safer than in it sounds on paper. But with word of the event now jumping that selective process, curiosity seekers, amateur drinkers out on a New Year’s Eve binge, rowdies and the like will all be there to see what big deal is. And that doesn’t bode well for the bonfire event as those of us who have regularly attended know it. For many of us, it’s a huge leap from fireworks to handguns, but not for others, and they add a level of danger that fire and fireworks don’t.

We’ve all known this day would come. Open fires and unregulated fireworks in a residential neighborhood aren’t permitted, and sooner or later, the city would step in. And a regulated, authorized version just isn’t the same thing. Part of the beauty of the event was how civil an unpoliced event could be, even with the presence of a lot of alcohol. It confirms what I’ve always believed: Police and coersive laws provoke a lot of misbehavior, and if people see a good reason not to misbehave – like having fun – they don’t.

For those who are interested, an online petition to save the bonfire has been posted here.