New Orleans attack raises familiar debate: Can Bourbon Street be made safe?

abcnews.go.com:

As New Orleans seeks to recover from the deadly, Islamic State-inspired truck attack, law enforcement and community leaders are confronting an existential question as old as the city's famed entertainment district: Can Bourbon Street be protected in a ...

NEW ORLEANS — The second-guessing began before the bodies had been cleared from the debris of the deadly Bourbon Street truck attack.

A law firm signed up survivors of what it called a “predictable and preventable” tragedy. Politicians parried blame for the latest mass-casualty event in New Orleans’ infamous adult playground. And investigations targeted the ill-fated removal of the street's bollards, steel columns designed to restrict vehicle access.

But as the city seeks to recover and beefs up security ahead of next month's Super Bowl and Carnival season, law enforcement and community leaders are confronting an existential question as old as the entertainment district: Can Bourbon Street be protected in a way that preserves its unique, round-the-clock revelry?

“Once we start to hear what it’s actually going to take to secure the French Quarter and the Mardi Gras parade routes, I don’t know if this city is going to have an appetite for all that,” said Rafael Goyeneche, a former prosecutor who is president of the Metropolitan Crime Commission watchdog group.

“If we try to make New Orleans as secure as an airport, people aren't going to like it,” he said. “This isn’t Disney World.”

Shock and grief have given way to finger-pointing over whether additional security could have stopped — or mitigated — the Islamic State group-inspired attack, which killed 14 people when Shamsud-Din Jabbar drove a pickup through a New Year's crowd.

In the difficult days since, proposals