Gay bars in New Orleans cope in aftermath of New Year’s attack

Photo: Wikimedia Commons

In the aftermath of a terrorist attack on New Orleans’ famed Bourbon Street in the early morning hours of New Year’s Day, which left 14 dead and dozens injured, the district’s LGBTQ+ bars are coping in a city known more for letting the good times roll than dwelling on tragedy.

The attack came on one of the area’s biggest nights of the year and just a month before New Orleans hosts the Super Bowl and puts on its annual Mardi Gras celebration.

Businesses on the famed thoroughfare were largely open just two days after the deadly assault by Shamsud-Din Jabbar, a 42-year-old U.S. citizen from Texas, who drove a rented pickup truck through two and a half blocks of Bourbon Street at about 3 a.m. local time, wreaking a shocking trail of death.

The FBI reported Jabbar uploaded social media videos on his way to the planned attack proclaiming allegiance to the so-called Islamic State, or ISIS.

Three gay bars are located just past the intersection where authorities say Jabbar placed two improvised bombs in…

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