The Story Behind the Lucky Dogs Monopoly

A Documentary and a Cameo from a friend of the Louisiana First Standard

Hello all,

I hope everyone’s week has gone well so far. We’ve put out a lot of solid content here on the Louisiana First Standard, so I hope that you all have enjoyed it!

Last week, I watched a new, intriguing documentary about a famous hot dog stand in New Orleans— the Lucky Dog hot stand. The Dirty Dogs documentary featured a friend of the Louisiana First Standard— local conservative attorney John Mason.

John Mason did a fantastic job in providing a conservative perspective in this documentary, so I wanted to give him a personal shoutout in today’s article.

Getting back to the subject at hand, the recent Dirty Dogs documentary premiered last month on Amazon Video tells the tale of the longtime monopoly held by the Lucky Dogs hot dog stand.

The trailer below gives an accurate overview of the documentary’s focus:

For those who don’t know, the tacky Lucky Dogs hot dog stand was the ONLY permitted food vendor in the French Quarter for 50 YEARS. Yes, you read that last sentence correctly.

In 1972, he New Orleans City Council passed an ordinance that effectively gave Lucky Dogs a monopoly in the French Quarter. Until late 2022, no other food vendor was legally allowed to sell food from a pushcart or food truck in the French Quarter.

Interestingly enough, the documentary did spend time discussing the owners of the Lucky Dog stand. To my surprise, the owner of Lucky Dogs is state senator Kirk Talbot— who is my very own elected official (state senate district 10).

The documentary understandably criticized Talbot and his family for his profiting off of a government monopoly for decades. It’s sad to see another example of a Republican politician hypocritically benefitting from a blatanlty “Louisiana First” policy, but I digress.

Regardless, the producers of Dirty Dogs documentary and other local figures put pressure on the City of New Orleans to open up competition in the French Quarter a few years ago.

Even local investigative journalist Lee Zurik shed light on the Lucky Dogs monopoly in early 2022:

Throughout the documentary, local conservative figure John Mason also shared his criticism of government-enforced monopolies from a free-market perspective. John had this insightful observation to share about monopolies:

“Monopolies are inherently flawed, yet we’re forced to accept them for cable TV and our electricity. It’s time for a paradigm shift.”

After months of public outcry, New Orleans city councilman Freddie King proposed an ordinance to end the Lucky Dogs monopoly during a November 2022 city council meeting. Fortunately, the City Council unanimously voted to open up the French Quarter and issue several new food vending permits for the famed neighborhood.

There you have: that’s the summarized version of the story behind the Lucky Dogs monopoly. For a more full telling of this story, I would recommend checking out the Dirty Dogs documentary on Amazon Video.

Now, I will forewarn the audience that the Dirty Dogs documentary does lean fairly heavily into some left-wing themes for a good chunk of the time. Regardless, I still think the film provided some interesting background about a story that very few people in New Orleans knew about— including myself!

Thank you all for reading, and may Christ Jesus bless the state of Louisiana! Only Louisiana First!