Savannah, Atlanta Cancel St. Patrick’s Day Parades

Savannah called off its St. Patrick’s Day parade for the first time in nearly a century, bowing Wednesday to the coronavirus outbreak. Atlanta also canceled its parade, which was planned for Saturday.

The Georgia cities follow Chicago, Boston and places in Ireland in scrapping the annual parades in a bid to stop the spread of the new virus strain.

“Out of an abundance of caution, the Atlanta St. Patrick’s Parade is cancelling this year’s event due to the growing concerns about the COVID … The health and safety of our participants, volunteers and attendees are of the utmost importance to us and we felt this was the only responsible action we could have taken. We hope this mitigation measure will help keep metro Atlanta residents safe,” according to the Atlanta event’s website.

According to the website, the Atlanta parade “dates back to 1858, making it one of the country’s oldest.”

Savannah’s 196-year-old celebration is immensely profitable and popular, drawing up to half a million people or more.

It’s the first time in 99 years that Savannah will forgo the popular parade begun in 1824 by Irish immigrants to Georgia’s oldest city. Since then, celebrating St. Patrick’s Day has become Savannah’s largest annual tourist attraction, with peak crowds sometimes estimated at 500,000 people or more.

Savannah Mayor Van Johnson told a news conference he understood the decision would be unpopular with many. No members of the Savannah St. Patrick’s Day Parade Committee that organizes the annual procession attended the mayor’s announcement.

“While the risk of Savannah remains low, we want to ensure we do everything we can to keep those living in our city safe and healthy,” Johnson said.

He emphasized that businesses in the city could remain open, saying he still expects thousands of visitors even without an official celebration. Savannah and surrounding Chatham County had not reported any coronavirus cases as of Wednesday.

With the March 17 holiday falling amid a workweek this year, Savannah had organized a two-part celebration. It had been scheduled to open with a long weekend festival — Friday through Sunday — along the riverfront promenade of bars and souvenir shops. The parade was to follow on Tuesday, the actual holiday.

St. Patrick’s Day is typically the most lucrative holiday of the year for bars, restaurants and other businesses in Savannah’s downtown historic district. Now they’re bracing for a painful economic blow after having stocked up on extra food and beer as well as and gaudy green hats and T-shirts.

“You’ve got a lot of people who rely on that money,” said Melissa Swanson, owner of The Rail Pub in Savannah’s downtown historic district. “It’s part of your business plan.”

The last time Savannah went without a St. Patrick’s Day parade was 1921, when organizers shelved the event to show solidarity with Ireland in its war for independence from Britain.

WABE contributed to this report