Yesterday's announcement that the Greenville Avenue St. Patrick's Day Parade is now the Dallas St. Patrick's Day Parade seems to have been greeted with a collective, "Call it whatever the hell you want so long as there's booze."
Look a bit more carefully, and the announcement included some ominous signs for the parade's future. At City Hall yesterday, Pegasus News reported that city officials and parade organizers promised the event would be "family friendly" with "less of a focus on drinking." Mayor Mike Rawlings expressed his view that the parade had grown "a little raucous," apparently unaware that raucousness it pretty much the point.
Visions danced of Greenville Avenue populated by the animatronic ethnic folks from the "It's a Small World" ride as onlookers guzzled Solo cups of club soda.
D's Tim Rogers very briefly freaked out before concluding that the changes will be confined to the floats: "No sexually-oriented business will be allowed in the parade, and rowdier groups won't be permitted to drink on the floats or toss drinks into the audience," as Pegasus puts it.
But is that all? Are restaurants going to be encouraged to hold back on alcohol sales? Are police going to bring the paddy wagon to haul off all the drunks? WILL THERE STILL BE BEER?
Parade spokesman Mauricio Navarro says you -- though probably not your liver -- have no cause for concern.
"Its on the event cosmetics," he wrote in an email. "We can't stop people from drinking, just trying to bring more pageantry to the parade via floats, parade branding, communications, DART partnership and so on."
So there you have it: You'll still be able to get trashed and pass out on a well manicured East Dallas lawn. Sleep well, friends, tonight and forever more.
