SAVANNAH, Ga. (AP) - What’s nearly two centuries old, worth more than $30 million and requires more portable toilets than the number of days in the year?
The answer is St. Patrick’s Day in Savannah. What started in the early 19th century as a small procession honoring the Irish heritage of the city’s immigrants has grown into one of the South’s largest street parties after Mardi Gras.
Thousands of gaudy green visitors began arriving in Savannah over the weekend for a four-day celebration that peaks Tuesday, the official March 17 holiday, with the city’s sprawling St. Patrick’s Day parade.
Here’s how Savannah’s biggest holiday breaks down by the numbers.
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HISTORY OF REVELRY
Georgia was the last of the original 13 British colonies, and Savannah is its oldest city. Thousands of Irish immigrants began settling here around 1820, a few decades after the American Revolution. The St. Patrick’s Day tradition in Savannah dates back to the first parade held on March 17, 1824. While Savannah has been celebrating St. Patrick’s Day for 191 years, there have been at least six years without a parade. That includes twice during the Civil War, in 1862 and 1864, and in 1918 during World War I.
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COLOR OF MONEY
It would be pure blarney to make any precise claims about how many people visit Savannah for St. Patrick’s Day and how much they spend. The most recent economic impact study, conducted way back in 2001, found St. Patrick’s visitors spent $30 million just at the bars, restaurants and merchants along the city’s popular riverfront. So that figure doesn’t include cash spent throughout most of the city. Crowd estimates on peak years have ranged upward from 400,000, but no agency does an official count. The best hard number from City Hall: in each of the last two years, nearly 80,000 people bought wristbands needed to drink alcohol outdoors in two of downtown Savannah’s busiest bar districts.
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ONE BIG PARADE
Organizers have long billed the Savannah St. Patrick’s Day parade as the nation’s second-largest. That’s based on the size of the procession itself, rather than the number of people watching. Kevin Halligan, chairman of the private committee that organizes the Savannah parade, said between 300 and 325 marching units are expected to take part Tuesday. That includes 32 bands, more than 50 floats, and somewhere between 7,500 and 10,000 individual people either walking or riding. The route is 2.6 miles long and watching the parade start-to-finish should take about three hours.
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BOTTOMS UP!
Hosting a four-day St. Patrick’s party with thousands of thirsty guests requires a lot of booze. At Bay Street Blues, a cozy bar with a prime location on the parade route, owner Bonnie Walden figures her customers will drain 30 kegs of beer and gulp down 5,000 gelatin shots between Saturday and Tuesday. Mark Milboer of Savannah Distributing, which specializes in supplying local bars and restaurants with craft beer, estimated it will roll out 120 kegs of craft beer and another 100 kegs of Corona Light over the holiday period. One of Savannah’s largest beer suppliers, Southern Eagle Distributing, declined to discuss St. Patrick’s sales. How much beer in a keg? Most bars use 15.5-gallon kegs, which contain 124 pints.
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NATURE CALLS
If long lines for beer are a given on St. Patrick’s Day, so are long lines to … make room for more. The City of Savannah is renting 411 portable toilets for the parade route and high-traffic bar districts. And city officials warn that urinating in public carries a fine of $140.
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