Aiming to reduce litter and make parades a little safer, the New Orleans City Council adopted new Carnival rules Thursday that will affect this year's parades and how spectators watch them.

Among other things, the rules, which will take effect for parades in the final two weeks of 2020 Carnival season, bar krewes from throwing the plastic bags in which packs of beads are packaged and limit the number of marching bands and dancing groups per parade.

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The new rules also prohibit placing chairs or ladders on public rights of way, including neutral grounds, more than four hours before the start of any parade. Before, the law generally banned placing those items along a route early to reserve a spot, but was vague on how early was too early.

"This is solely to make Mardi Gras a little bit cleaner and also to prevent some accidents," said city Director of Special Projects Bryon Cornelison, who briefed the council on the rules that had been requested by Mayor LaToya Cantrell.

The new rules come about six years after the city approved its last major rewrite of parade rules. Cantrell, then a member of the City Council, sponsored changes that, among other things, required spectators to put ladders 6 feet back from the curb.

The latest changes are the product of conversations with several of the city's Carnival krewes, who were in some cases already doing what the city will now require. The Krewe of Freret and many others already cap the number of marching groups, krewe Captain Bobby Hjortsberg has said.

Some of the other rules changes, such as the prohibition on throwing some plastic materials into the streets, are new. The city does not expect krewes to quit buying plastic-wrapped bulk throws, but it wants float riders to unwrap and dispose of the plastic before throwing the items to paradegoers.

Float riders can still hand bulk beads in plastic bags to people in the crowd, but they are forbidden to throw them.

Cornelison said a red bag of bulk beads he held up, which was wrapped in plastic, is fine to hand out, but tossing the empty plastic material surrounding it is not.

"These plastic bags also slip under the feet of band members and dance troupes and other things, causing a safety hazard," he said.

The city also does not want krewes throwing cardboard boxes, empty plastic bags or the kind of toilet paper that doesn't biodegrade easily when wet. Officials said such paper takes weeks to clean out of the city's trees and green spaces.

Krewe members can still hand out thicker plastic bags with handles and zippers that can carry several sets of beads. They also are expected to hand toys, coconuts and the like to revelers.

Parade participants that violate the rules could be fined $500 per violation. Carnival krewes could also lose their permits to parade.

The rules also try to provide clarity to an existing ban on reserving space on a parade route using items such as chairs or ladders.

The city can remove those items if they are put out more than four hours before a parade starts, the rules say. The items may also be removed if left out after the last parade of the day ends. The city's often-broken rule that prohibits individuals from camping out along routes hours or days before parades remains unchanged.

In practice, Cantrell's administration had been removing ladders put out 24 hours before a parade.

The city separately is forbidding people to park campers or cargo vans within two blocks of a parade route. That rule would apply between four hours before and four hours after a parade, and is meant to prevent criminals from using the often unattended vehicles to harm paradegoers.

Trucks with portable toilets also will not be allowed that close to a route, a provision Councilman Joe Giarrusso fought unsuccessfully to remove. He said the ban is unfair to residents.

"As this is laid out now, I think it addresses keeping as much of a large group safe as we can," Councilman Jason Williams said.