The St. Patrick's Day Problem 
Erin Go Braugh! Raise your pint of Guinness and toast to the spirit of Saint Patrick! Happy Saint Patrick’s Day! May it be a fantastic and awesome day filled with Bagpipes, Guinness and enough Jameson to fill the Hudson River! What can better encapsulate what we think of St. Patrick’s Day than by the words of Boston’s own favorite sons, and no, I’m not talking about Ben Affleck and Matt Damon.
Although singing Dropkick Murphy, particularly today, makes for an awesome excuse to sing a great drunkards anthem or as an awesome accompaniment to last call at every bar across the US, it also highlights the dichotomy of Saint Patrick’s Day. We drink and celebrate but at the same time, the drunken debauchery still occurs and doesn’t get reported until we read the police blotter the next morning with our morning coffee.
Hell, I love St. Patrick’s Day and was in attendance for 2 Day Longs meant to celebrate the holiday, but there is a dark side to the debauchery that never really gets discussed. The first day long I went to… lets just say it was bad:
State Patty's Day 2011 was indeed the busiest State Patty's yet for police, who made 234 criminal arrests over the unsanctioned drinking-holiday weekend, the department reported Monday. Borough police made 160 arrests during State Patty's Day weekend last year. Overall calls for borough police service grew this year, too, climbing to 480 from last year's total of 365, police said. Incident reports for the period -- from noon Friday through noon Sunday -- include 14 DUI arrests, 14 alcohol overdoses […], and 34 disorderly people. The reports also include 65 open-container violations, 51 underage-drinking incidents, 24 loud-party and other noise calls, 20 public-drunkenness cases, 11 instances of public urination and 10 reports of fighting.
This makes the debauchery sound like an awesome time, right? The second day long I went to was in Hoboken… and they were far worse off when the damage finally accounted for. It is the only time I have ever seen the fines be blatantly changed in order to coerce cooperation when out in public. Traditionally, in New Jersey, every public intoxication case is handled on the basis of the circumstances surrounding it. On St. Patrick’s Day, in Hoboken, the fines are handed out with at least $2,000 in fines and fees and 30 days of Community Service. Even with the ridiculous fines, people were still out drinking, partying and causing trouble… lots of trouble. I saw the cops out giving fines, and rightfully so, to people who were drunk and shitty at 8:30 in the morning. If you’re that gone that early, you shouldn’t be pretending that you know how to go hard in the first place anyways. What got me, however, was the total amount of damage done on one day.
We’ve all drank and we all know that things can get a little out of hand, but how do you balance the celebratory nature with the necessity of protecting the public? I’m not saying that extreme amounts of legislation on St. Patrick’s Day are necessary nor am I implying that we should allow the chaos to just happen without care. Do we take the rights of the individuals away and prevent them from having fun or do we let them go unchecked? Do we ask more from our police and firefighters or do we assume that people can care for themselves?
There’s no right or wrong answer, just eventual changes to next year’s celebration. It’s just a matter of what changes you want to make. So what do you do if you are the one in charge? How would you handle the fine balancing act between letting people engage in something they can, presumably, legally do in drinking and preventing them from doing something that breaks the law? At what point would you draw the line?
Comments
Shivers me kilts Mr.
Shivers me kilts Mr. Freeze...burp
Having celebrated St. Pats in
Having celebrated St. Pats in Hoboken a few times I can tell you that not even a million dollar fine would persuade most of the party-goers
You haven't seen St. Patty's
You haven't seen St. Patty's Day until you've done it in Dublin. Everyone there is hugging and kissing -- it's a big, crowded love fest.
The effectiveness of
The effectiveness of increasing a fine is only useful (1) to the extent that the increased fine is communicated to the wrongdoer beforehand and (2) the ability of a drunken Irishman (or wannabe Irishman) to make rational economic judgments in the moment. In short, stupid strategy.
Frieds wrote: Incident
Incident reports for the period -- from noon Friday through noon Sunday -- include 14 DUI arrests, 14 alcohol overdoses […], and 34 disorderly people. The reports also include 65 open-container violations, 51 underage-drinking incidents, 24 loud-party and other noise calls, 20 public-drunkenness cases, 11 instances of public urination and 10 reports of fighting.
A lot of these are just nuisances in my book (open container, loud party noise, public urination) - I'm not sure increasing enforcement on these issues does anything more to protect the public. Maybe just focus on DUIs, fighting and alcohol overdoses and let the rest of the people go on their merry way!
Legallyblonde, Hoboken
Legallyblonde, Hoboken plasters every bar with notice signs about 2 weeks before St. Patrick's Day. On St. Patrick's Day, every garage and all the mass transit terminals are plastered with the signs as well. There is enough notice in town that it is presumed clear that the fines are increased. So what do you propose we do to fix it then?
Chimichanga, I'm not sure if the links are working right, so I can't check right now, but I think I included a link about Hoboken setting up the DUI road blocks all over town. What I quoted there was from the first day long I went to in a college town, where Drunk Driving was not a major problem. If you were there, you didn't leave until Sunday.
The incidence rate in Hoboken was significantly higher. Unfortunately, I don't have the full report, otherwise I'd be linking to that as well. Scary as it sounds though, its worse when someone you know is involved with as a sober person dealing with the drunks. I found out last night that a family friend of mine was attacked by a couple of drunkards in Hoboken. He and his fiancée were coming into Hoboken in the evening, and as they were walking down Washington some drunkards came up and started hassling him and his bride-to-be. He steps in and the drunks start swinging. The guys who attacked him were arrested and charged with, among other things, public drunkenness, disorderly conduct and assault.
Frieds wrote: The guys who
The guys who attacked him were arrested and charged with, among other things, public drunkenness, disorderly conduct and assault.
I would argue that assault falls into the "fighting" category I exempted . . . Sorry to hear about your friend.
Frieds wrote: Legallyblonde,
Legallyblonde, Hoboken plasters every bar with notice signs about 2 weeks before St. Patrick's Day. On St. Patrick's Day, every garage and all the mass transit terminals are plastered with the signs as well. There is enough notice in town that it is presumed clear that the fines are increased. So what do you propose we do to fix it then?
So assumption - everyone who gets shitfaced on St. Patty's Day in Hoboken frequents a Hoboken bar 2 weeks beforehand -- Ok, I'm willing to accept that premise. Still doesn't help with the second part of the argument - that drunk ass people don't make rational decisions. Didn't the incident rate go up despite the increase in fines?
As far as my proposal to fix it, one proposal would be to not go to bars on St. Patrick's Day if you don't want to deal with drunk Irishmen. The second would involve utilizing the judgment of those who are not impaired -- hence enacting and/or enforcing dram shop laws.
Also sorry to hear about your friend. Love you Frieds! XOXO
Well, my friend was fine and
Well, my friend was fine and the cops let him and his fiancée off Scott Free. He was sober and had the cops agreed that he defended himself in Self-Defense against the drunkards.
LB, I'm going to amend your proposal, as it's not just people who go to the bars in the prior two weeks, it's residents of Hoboken as well who know or people who have been in the past to Hoboken on St. Patrick's Day. Yeah... the incidence rate went up significantly despite the fees, and while the argument for Dram Shop Laws is a good call, it only applies to the bars, and not house parties. Same holds true with "avoiding the bars", but that prohibits me from going out in general on that Saturday - meaning that I wouldn't be able to go house parties, friends places, or even out to run a few errands. If I want to go anywhere on Washington, particularly if I decided to hop the PATH and cross the river into NYC, I am forced to pass the downtown bar scene. Should I be impeded from going about my business if I don't feel like taking part in the follies of St. Patrick's Day?
This is why I find there to be so much difficulty in determining how to fix the problem.
Dear Frieds, do you bitch
Dear Frieds, do you bitch about the crowds at Mardi Gras, not being able to drive through Times Square on NYE, and stores being closed on Christmas?
Gotta go with thenuge on this
Gotta go with thenuge on this one. They have every right to get fucked up, and any heavy drinker is not going to be deterred by increased fines. Don't want to deal with drunk morons? Don't go out on St Pattys Day. It's a free country, people have the right to be idiots, and you have the right to stay home
thenuge wrote: Dear Frieds,
Dear Frieds, do you bitch about the crowds at Mardi Gras, not being able to drive through Times Square on NYE, and stores being closed on Christmas?
Wow... a direct assault and I'm only on my second blog. That's awesome! You can't make an argument and just resort the use of assumptive commentary. I'm impressed. Way to go. To answer your questions:
No, I don't care about the crowds at Mardi Gras. Mardi Gras is also an extremely well controlled, well ran and a surprisingly well organized sea of Chaos.
No, I don't give a damn about not being able to drive through Times Square on NYE. If I'm going into the city to revel on NYE, I take the train. Even then, if I worked around the Times Square area and had my car in the city, I'd park it 10+ blocks away.
No, I don't give a damn about stores being closed on Christmas. It's called a Federal Holiday for a reason.
And to answer the unasked question, which you failed to consider, what was the basis for my rant. There was a blog in the WSJ that was the basis for my blog. I'm going to post the hyperlink here since there seems to be an issue properly linking at the moment.
http://blogs.wsj.com/metropolis/2011/03/08/hoboken-reels-from-wild-st-pa...
DM, fair points and while I normally don't care what people do in terms of their drinking nor do I pay much heed to the commotions on St. Patrick's Day, I just found it interesting when you consider how much crime jumps on one day compared to the rest of the year, particularly when it's caused by a alcohol-induced impairment.
Midas Mulligan Magoo
Shivers me kilts Mr. Freeze...burp
NICE
+1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FaYR5lwzomE
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