Parade Cancelled, Bar Owners Upset, But Still Expecting Large Crowds

While employees of Hoboken's downtown bars have expressed their disappointment , it's unclear if large crowds of visitors will still come to Hoboken on March 3. 

The consensus among Hoboken's bar employees are that the lack of parade will hurt their bottom line. In the past years, most of the problems on St. Patrick's Day have originated at house parties and in the streets, not in the bars. 

"Come on, do you really have to urinate off your roof?" asked one waitress at a waterfront bar, upset with the change. "There's no respect."

"It'll hurt the bars financially," said Erik Christensen, manager at the Pour House. "It's the best day of the year." But, Christensen said, he suspected many people will still come to town. 

"It brings in a lot of out of towners," said Colleen O'Brien, bartender at Marty O'Brien's at First and Garden Streets. The parade, she said also, brings the bar a lot of customers the rest of the year. 

At the Wicked Wolf Tavern on River Street, St. Patrick's Day is the busiest day of the year according to bartender James Madsen. By cancelling the parade, he said, "you're taking a huge chunk of cash out of people's pockets." 

Usually Hoboken's bars charge a roughly $20 cover on the day of the parade. This year, Madsen said he was afraid "people are not going to pay it," because a lot of people won't come to Hoboken. Madsen said that at least ten percent of the bars' annual revenue is earned on parade day.

For the city, Mayor Dawn Zimmer said, the parade is not a financial issue. "It's not about the money," Zimmer said. Last year, the parade cost the city more than $150,000 in police overtime and other cost, she said.

Zimmer, in a press conference on Friday afternoon, said that the city is still "preparing for the worst." Zimmer said that bars are allowed to open as early as 6:30 a.m. on any day, saying that technically bars could still open early on March 3. 

Local website EatDrinkHoboken already pledged that with or without the parade, the party will go on.

Last year, the entire police force was out in the streets, as well as officers from other law enforcement agencies, such as the county and the Port Authority. 

"It's something we couldn't handle," Zimmer said about the parade, "but not for lack of trying."