Not Your Typical St. Patrick’s Day In Savannah
A visitor rides a trolly past City Hall along the St. Patrick’s Day parade route in downtown Savannah Tuesday. Last week Savannah’s mayor announced the city’s 196-year-old St. Patrick’s Day parade was called off due to coronavirus concerns.
This is the first time in about a century that Savannah decided to cancel its St. Patrick’s Day parade, which would have happened Tuesday morning. It has grown into one of the largest in the country.
Joe Marinelli, president of Visit Savannah, said this is peak tourism season when hotels are normally more than 90 % full. But not this year, he said.
“The numbers are just at the very bottom. We’ve seen tremendous cancellations and very, very low, occupancies at the hotels,” he said.
While Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms has banned gatherings over 50 people, Savannah Mayor Van Johnson said in a Tuesday press conference they’re not mandating anything at this point. The Savannah area does not have a confirmed coronavirus case.
“We’re using this opportunity to tell our bars and restaurants that they see the handwriting on the wall,” he said. “We’re saying we would rather you do it voluntarily.”
And so, many bars are still open. One organized a “Don’t Kiss Me, I’m Virish” charity bar crawl to mark the absence of the parade.
Savannah Chamber of Commerce President and CEO Bill Hubbard estimated the city is seeing a third of the usual traffic. “It’s not at all like a typical St. Patrick’s Day. Normally you wouldn’t be able to drive or walk downtown,” he said.
He’s concerned about the lasting effects of the pandemic on the local economy, even outside of the St. Patrick’s Day celebration.
“I think people are looking at their business and saying how long is it going to be slow? What bills are due? What’s my cash flow?” Hubbard said.
“In the biggest picture of all, we’ll recover and have another parade. But the hardship financially that businesses and individuals feel is the hardship that will be more difficult to recover from.”
Norton Lucas, a musician and a server at Molly McPhersons’s Pub and Grill in downtown Savannah said while a good amount of people are out and still wearing green, it doesn’t feel like a typical St. Patrick’s Day. It does, however, feel familiar, he said.
“It’s kind of turned St. Patrick’s Day into what it used to be in this town,” he said. “Yeah, it’s a party, but it’s not ridiculous. A certain amount of drunk idiots is charming until there are 2 million of them at once.”
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