ESTÚPIDO SAVANNAH - Thursday, January 29, 2009 5:15:22 PM
I went to New Orleans once.
It was back during my Anne Rice phase and I stayed at a hotel she had featured in one of her books and I rode the trolley featured in one of her books and I walked around her house in the Garden District.
I also expected to see a wee bit of debauchery in the French Quarter. I hoped for shocking scenes of public nudity and wholly inappropriate public displays of affection and lust.
What I got instead was a bunch of drunken people, some homeless people and a whole lotta folks like myself waiting for the show to start.
I was truly disappointed that New Orleans failed to live up to the hype.
I bring this up in reference to all the recent discussion of toning down St. Patrick’s Festivities in Savannah.
I am trying to figure out just what our Chamber of Commerce wants to do with the event. Bill Hubbard couched his rhetoric in bland shades of off-white, urging that live acts during the festival should reflect an "ideal audience" and have the right “flavor” which I think means no black folks and few if any rednecks if we can avoid it.
They also want to end street level food and beer sales which makes no sense at all considering that even in off years we will likely attract a crowd too large to fit into the restaurants and bars.
Again it is hard to know just what they want to do or really why they want to do it cause they are too busy dancing around the issues.
According to the SMN:
“Hubbard said the holiday is becoming increasingly known for excessive drinking. The changes are needed for safety and to preserve Savannah's image as a tourist destination.”
That is a load of bunk.
The event’s reputation is fueled by generations of hearsay and very little in the way of truly bad behavior.
I mean, I don’t go down there anymore but I’ve heard about all sorts of sordid nonsense going on at the festival. But all the actual evidence points to a little boob flashing and some public urination as the height of St.P Day debauchery.
Most of what I hear about the event is how much better, wilder, crazier it used to be “back in the day”. If the festival is “becoming increasingly known for” something it is lameness due to a heavy handed police presence and the excessive cost of everything associated with it.
As far as bad behavior, we’ve been on a downward slope for years if the number of arrests is any indication.
2008 – 46 arrests
2007 – 223 arrests
2006 – 159 arrests
2005 – 131 arrests
2004 – Can’t Find
2003 – Can’t find
2002 – 277 arrests and citations
2001 - 318 arrests and citations
2000 - 392 arrests and citations
1999 - 551 arrests and citations
1998 - 582 arrests
So back in the day it was a much “better” party if you gauge it by how many people crossed the line.
I don’t know what’s behind this sudden move to kill the festival but the reasons they are giving so far are just so much blarney.
Comments
Yes, Bill Hubbard finally gets some press. I'm sure he is happy now. How about the other festivals that offer food and drink? I've been down there for a number of different festivals and there are plenty of restaurants from the other side of town or out of town that set up and sell food and drink. To protect the River Street businesses they too will be banned? It does not smack of elitism at all to control even the music that fills the air. Excuses Hubbard uses to defend his vision are just as valid as his excuse that because we share an airport with Hilton Head local tax payers should provide free advertising for South Carolina businesses over our own. His excuses are simply indefensible. Let the gates come down and have the do nothing shamber hire police officers out of DC to come and help oversee our event.