In South Boston, packies close at 4 today, bars at 7:30
By adamg - 3/17/13 - 10:28 am
Mayor advises residents: Don't be a knucklehead - and if you have a house along the parade route, watch those guests near the deck railings.
Comments
What a joke.
The parade was always held on St Patrick's Day no matter which day of the week it fell on. It used to be the "high" holiday in Boston.
The parade was moved to the Sunday closest to the holiday because of the "knuckleheads" who wanted to act like morons, drink and ruin the day for everyone else. Back then packies and bars weren't open on Sunday.
Fast forward to today....parade on Sunday, bars and packies open, people drinking all week. Now the City wants to close these places early.
They shouldn't even be opened. The smart bar owners know it's more of a headache so they remain closed all day.
Bar owners should be irate
I know plenty of bar owners including a few in Southie and I think they'd disagree with anon 10:39 am. The "smart" bar owners would have to be independently wealthy to voluntarily close 4-5 hours early on a day with a captive audience numbered in the hundreds of thousands on their doorsteps. Huge fixed costs in the bar business: city fees on everything from the liquor license to the milk license, taxes galore, rent/mortgage, mandatory insurance (liquor liability, worker's compensation, TIPS/ServSafe training, etc.) fixed costs on all contracted ancillary vendors who service bars (linen service, knife sharpening service, HVAC repair, exterminator etc.)
There's a lot of money being paid out and only so many days to make it back. It amazes me that buffoon Menino does this on St. Patrick's Day and also shuts the bars near the Garden after certain big games, again with thousands of potential customers passing by. He's basically saying his police department can't handle big events and that the city's mandatory alcohol server training doesn't work. Menino should stay out of it. If the bar owners decide to stay open, let them. Punish the few who break the rules, don't punish all.
See this is BS
because at all of the Mayors beloved Italian festivals in the N. End people drink openly in front of BPD. Bias Much!
Do the North End Italian
Do the North End Italian festivals have the same history of vomit- and urine-drenched drunken loutish hooliganism that the South Boston St Patrick festivities do? My admittedly limited first-hand experience suggests not.
Thats
racist
No
but they all have FAKE Italian accents. Never understood how someone born in Boston could have a foreign accent.
Walk over the bridge ...
We in the South End will welcome your open wallets with our open arms!
I think beers start at $2 at JJ Foley's? And, easy access to Rts. 1 and 93.
Yes, yes, come get your drink
Yes, yes, come get your drink on and then drunkenly drive home
Only One Year
Granted, I only checked out the parade one year, but if I remember, most of the crowd left shortly after the parade. Is rowdy drunkenness today really confined to just Southie? My sense is that it's not. If the mayor really wanted to control rowdy drunkenness today, shouldn't he extend the early closing across the city?
left?
No, I just came home now 7:15 and had to fight my way up the subway stairs at Broadway and down the sidewalk on West Broadway.. tons of 20 somethings leaving now. Still the condo porches are full of screaming females and shouting males. And yes, rowdy drunks across the city.
Its time to move Boston's
Its time to move Boston's parade out of South Boston becaue South Boston hasn't been an Irish neighborhood for 15 years now. They should move it to Boylston Street and maybe have it end at the Broadway T Stop in Southie (just to appease the simpletons).
West Roxbury
Probably the most Irish-American part of the city today!
It's time to learn Southie History
If you plan to stay.
The celebration is for the Evacuation of Boston, which took place because of the cannons stationed on Dorchester Heights.
If you knew of the events over the course of the celebration, you would know that in addition to a parade, there are also events on the Heights celebrating how Knox carried the cannons overland from New York to pin the British down, thus checkmating them in New England.
The parade has been a zoo for a lot longer than you've been there. I'd say 20 years, and I'd be off with that guess, too. Charlestown is also a zoo for the Bunker Hill Day celebrations. Should we move those to the Financial District?
I'm not from Southie, never lived in Southie, and will never live in Southie (no offense to Southie), but the parade is a Southie event. Perhaps you might want to think about moving instead.
Once I retire....
... I want to actually go to all the various Revolutionary War-related events here in Boston (and nearby). I think it is marvelous to celebrate these events (albeit getting stinking drunk seems not to be the most appropriate mode of celebrating these).