Up in Sullivan’s Island, S.C., folks are trying to get control of their St. Patrick’s Day celebrations.
“Mainly,” writes Charleston Post and Courier columnist Brian Hicks, “they want to cut out some of the vomiting and public urination.”
Hicks quotes Sullivan’s Island Mayor Pat O’Neil: “If you want that kind of party, Savannah is only two hours away.”
Hicks adds: “If you want fall-down drunken St. Paddy partying, Savannah is your town, not Sullivan’s.”
Savannah is very different from Sullivan’s Island, obviously, and we have the infrastructure to handle some big festivals, including ones where the bars are packed.
Still, even though we have a large Irish-American population and the weeks leading up to the parade are dotted with traditional events, St. Patrick’s Day in Savannah has become known to much of the outside world as a holiday devoted to blackout drinking.
Some bars and hotels make big profits on St. Patrick’s Day, but there are obvious costs, too. Tourism is booming and tourists are spending more money than ever in Savannah, but many avoid Savannah on St. Patrick’s Day. Some businesses essentially shut down for the multi-day holiday because the partying is just too disruptive.
Attempts to rein in the drinking by gating River Street and requiring revelers to wear wristbands to drink outside seem to have worked to some degree. The crowds in recent years look nothing like some of the photos from the 1990s that keep getting circulated on social media as if they were new.
But the restrictions have also had the unintended consequence of driving away somewhat older, somewhat more sober locals who aren’t going to jump through hoops to go to their usual haunts.
Once you put in place the infrastructure to handle a large drunken party, you shouldn’t be surprised if you
end up with a large drunken party.
Just last week in this space, I noted that Savannah hasn’t really come up with a coherent vision of what we want St. Patrick’s Day to be. And we certainly haven’t come up with consistent policies that will work year in and year out, no matter what day of the week the parade is held.
This year, the actual holiday is on a Tuesday, so the heaviest downtown partying will likely be on the previous Saturday. In 2016, a leap year, St. Patrick’s Day falls on a Thursday, so it’s a little harder to predict whether big crowds will congregate downtown on the weekend before or the weekend after — or both.
If nothing else, we probably need a long-term plan to address perceptions like those apparently held by our good friends in Charleston.
City Talk appears every Sunday and Tuesday. Bill Dawers can be reached via billdawers@comcast.net. Send mail to 10 E. 32nd St., Savannah, GA 31401.