As the saying goes, on St. Patrick’s Day we are all a little Irish. From Tokyo to Chicago to Buenos Aires, St. Patrick’s Day has become an international holiday.
While corned beef and green rivers are popular parts of the tradition, for many the holiday is about one thing: drinking. St. Patrick’s Day and the weekend before it see some of the biggest spikes in drinking of the year. As a result, law enforcement agencies around the country are stepping up their patrols and DUI checkpoints with the expectation that drunk driving and other alcohol-related crimes will rise.
But one community is taking a very different stance. Recently, the city council in Savannah, Georgia, asked the state legislature to allow the city’s bars to serve alcohol on the Sunday before St. Patrick’s Day.
Under Georgia law, only restaurants—defined as establishments that make most of their income from food sales—may serve alcohol on Sundays. Last year Savannah was able to get permission for the city’s bars to serve alcohol on Sundays that fall during St. Patrick’s Day celebrations between March 16 and March 18. But this year Sunday falls one day short of that exception.
Members of the city council argue that they want to be fair to bar owners and to meet the tourist demand for alcohol during the city’s St. Patrick’s Day celebrations.
Given the problems many communities face during St. Patrick’s Day due to excessive drinking, Savannah’s push to increase access to alcohol this weekend has raised some eyebrows and drawn speculation that the measure has less to do with fairness and more to do with raising tax revenue—perhaps at the expense of public safety. What do you think?
