Last Saturday’s 2007 St. Patrick’s Day parade was a success by all accounts this year, with approximately 30,000 individuals taking part in the 20th anniversary celebration that for the first time included up to 18 marching bands.
“It was truly a remarkable day for all of us to be Irish, at least for one afternoon,” said Mayor David Roberts last week. “Although it had its share of excesses, there was a large improvement from last year, in large part because of the increased police presence throughout the city.”
Because the parade has become more and more of a party destination for the state’s young revelers in years past, the city publicized a “zero tolerance” policy this year toward excessive drinking and public rowdiness, encouraging the local bars to open up no earlier than 11 am.
But according to Hoboken Police Chief Dr. Carmen LaBruno, 554 city ordinance summonses were handed out on Saturday, the vast majority for individuals being caught with an open container of alcohol in the street. Drinking in public is against city laws.
LaBruno commended local drinking establishments last week, citing house parties as his number one concern throughout the day.
“Overall, bar owners did exactly what was agreed upon prior to the St. Patrick’s Day event,” said LaBruno, who could not recall a single violation given to a Hoboken bar, even though he had five undercover police teams frequenting drinking establishments. “There’s a concern about the sheer number of individuals coming into Hoboken to have house parties, where a combination of drinking, young people, and old structures caused me to reach out to the Hoboken Fire Department and city inspectors on several occasions.”
One of the reasons for the large amount of house parties in town, according to the chief, was that there were “not enough drinking establishments in town to accommodate them.”
LaBruno added that in no way should his opinion be taken as an advocacy for the creation of more bars in Hoboken, a city that at one time had the most bars in a square-mile, according to the Guinness Book of World Records.
Hoboken’s St. Patrick’s Day parade is held two weeks before St. Patrick’s Day every year so that the mile-square city does not have to compete with other cities for the best performers. The town of Belmar held its parade the day after Hoboken’s this year.
Concerns and incidents
Some local officials were eye-witnesses to rowdy behavior.
“I couldn’t get a bite to eat during the day because of the drunks,” said 3rd Ward Councilman Michael Russo. “Every place I went to in town was filled with ossified individuals, where loud, obnoxious young adults were running around, bumping into people and disrupting the quality of life for residences.”
Russo, who said the banister along the front steps of the Anthony Russo Civic Association building was ripped off on Saturday, added that he knew residents who had to leave Hoboken in order to enjoy their day.
“It’s better than it was a year ago, but it was still not where it needed to be,” he said.
Second Ward Councilman Richard Del Boccio observed two incidents near where he lives in the area of 11th and Hudson streets.
The first occurred at approximately 4 p.m. when two police officers on horseback had to confront and summons an individual who was urinating between cars on his block.
The second occurred at approximately 6:30 p.m. and involved an intoxicated individual trying to make his way into his neighbor’s home as the family exited the building, forcing them to go back inside and call police.
“The parade is totally irrelevant to out-of-town kids, [many of whom] were obnoxious and disgraceful,” said Del Boccio. “There is no correlation between St. Patrick’s Day and promoting drinking at 9 a.m.”
For the first time in Del Boccio’s political career, which stretches back over 18 years on the City Council, he did not march in Hoboken’s St. Patrick’s Day Parade. Instead, he decided to go to St. Patrick’s Cathedral in Manhattan with his wife to pay his respect to the saint, which he believed to be a more appropriate religious and spiritual way to celebrate the holiday.
Fr. Michael Guglielmelli of St. Francis Roman Catholic Church in Hoboken said he watched as an intoxicated man screamed obscenities into a phone outside his church on Saturday as parishioners left from mass.
“The parade was great and it gets better every year, but it’s like the city was turned over to the drunks,” said Guglielmelli. “I can’t tell you how many people complained to me. This year was the worst yet.”
St. Patrick’s Day Committee responds
In response to the criticisms and opinions expressed by some of the residents, Helen Cunning, who founded the St. Patrick’s Day Parade Committee, acknowledged that there was some inappropriate behavior by reverlers in town. But she cast doubt onto the police chief’s statistics and dismissed the negative stories as disingenuous attempts motivated by political aspirations spurred by the upcoming City Council election.
“It was a fabulous day,” Cunning said. “Everyone did their job and it was a worthy celebration of 20 years.”
The parade’s co-chair, Bill Noonan, viewed the summonses handed out on Saturday as more positive than negative, arguing that the numerous violations will, over time, deter individuals from acting as they did this past Saturday.
“[The St. Patrick’s Day Parade] is a celebration of our [Irish] heritage,” Noonan said. “It’s a family celebration, not an opportunity for kids to go out and just drink. This was the first step, and you can’t expect [the behavior of some] to change overnight. People now know that they are to have fun, but not overindulge oneself at the expense of the residents.”
Michael Mullins can be reached at mmullins@hudsonreporter.com.