In what may be an upstaging of New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu, trash business entrepreneur Sidney Torres is set to pay off-duty New Orleans Police Department (NOPD) officers to patrol the French Quarter.

Torres is known around the Big Easy for his rockstar good-looks, but most recently made headlines for slamming Landrieu for allowing crime to get so bad in the city. But, about a month ago, Torres struck a deal with Landrieu to help remedy an upswing violent crime.

Not only is Torres paying the NOPD off-duty cops, but he has also created a mobile phone app that the public will be able to use that will allow users to report a crime and alert the police where the crime occurred, and so on.

Here is FOX 8’s Meg Gatto with the story:

Torres originally came out of the wood-works to criticize Landrieu after his French Quarter home was burglarized. Since, he has been the leading force to motivate and demand that the Landrieu administration look to alternative solutions to fighting violent crime.

Landrieu’s plan, creating and funneling thousands into an unarmed “NOLA Patrol,” has taken heat from those who say using unarmed cops will not help defeat crime. The NOLA Patrol will focus on traffic violations in order to shore up more NOPD officers to patrol crime-ridden areas of the city.

For now, it seems Torres’ free-market solution to fighting crime is more popular than Landrieu’s publicly-funded solution.

For updates on Torres’ efforts, you can follow his Facebook page Keep The French Quarter Safe.