[caption id="attachment_70132" align="aligncenter" width="600" caption="Some lady leprechauns take a smoke break."]
Pub crawls didn't replace a St. Patrick's parade in Hoboken last Saturday, though some problems that have been associated with the march in recent years remained.
Light traffic flowed along the parade route on Washington Street at one o'clock when the 26th annual march in honor of Ireland's patron saint would have stepped off.
The bagpipe bands weren't there; neither were the brass bands. Local military veterans did not wave to crowds. City firefighters did not form up in dress uniforms. There were no boy or girl scouts marching with their parents. Nobody wore Aran sweaters to protect against the wind blowing off the Hudson River. No grand marshal, no Irishwoman of the year, or any Irish honoree wearing a tri-color sash on the city's main drag.
The St. Patrick's Parade committee didn't host a morning event featuring a traditional Irish breakfast and speeches about Irish contributions to Hoboken and America.
Mayor Dawn Zimmer did tweet that she walked length of the Mile Square City to survey those who did appear in Hoboken: thousands of twenty-somethings dressed as leprechauns and engaged in pub crawls.
The parade committee had cancelled this year's parade citing "the city of Hoboken's inability to protect our spectators, bands and participants."
Public safety and quality of life issues have been a concern in recent years, mostly because of the drunken behavior by those who go to bars and parties rather than the parade. This year, the mayor would only allow a parade on Wednesday evening instead of the traditional first Saturday in March, which kicks off Irish marching season in the Garden State.
"We got our own Maggie Thatcher here," said one local with a Dublin accent and a wink. "The iron lady's in city hall."
According to social media outlets, massive pub crawls featuring leprechaun-look-a-like drinkers were slated to fill the void. Dueling groups on Facebook claimed that more than 20,000 revelers would show up to replace the parade.
"You can cancel the parade, but not the party," proclaimed the Hoboken Lepre-con website.
But nothing can replace the parade.
The cool, wet morning and the fact that most bar owners voluntarily pushed back opening time until 11 a.m. got the day off to a slow start. By city law, they could have opened five hours earlier.
Soon after bar doors were unlocked, signs of house parties were noticeable in the west end of the city. Young women in green t-shirts and green tights, some sporting leopard-print Wellington boots, were carrying cases of beer to apartments.
Closer to city hall, bar owners watched from the sidewalk as the day unfolded. There was no mad dash to the pubs.
"This is nothing without the parade," said one. "There is no buzz. I miss the parade. I marched it for 20 years. There is nothing Irish about this."
As things dried out in the early afternoon, foot traffic livened up downtown with young adults in every sort of green costume, a few actually looking like leprechauns. Others sported fake thin kilts and carried boxes of Lucky Charms cereal.
The success of pub crawls organized by online groups like Lepre-con and Leprecon is questionable. Those behind the events sold t-shirts or "VIP" passes offering discounts at city bars. But most establishments did not sign on for the bar tours and offered no specials
"I feel like I got scammed twice," said one man who bought a $20 leprechaun t-shirt online. He said he didn't receive any benefit from the "official" shirt at the bars he went to. "And I bought one for my girlfriend as well."
Mostly, it all looked like a mass of people simply showed up in Hoboken on a Saturday afternoon to go to a bar while wearing something green.
One Hoboken police officer said thousands of out-of-towners had arrived. Every Hoboken officer was on duty as well as about 140 officers from the Hudson County Sheriff's Office and other surrounding municipalities. Police were on every corner, unlike in previous years.
Indeed, it was the largest police presence in Hoboken on the first Saturday in March in a quarter century. Why the extra police could not be added when the city was having the parade was not clear. As promised, there was zero tolerance for any bad behavior.
In the end, according to city hall, 18 people were arrested compared to the 34 who ended up in cuffs last year. It seemed a small gain for the loss of a parade.
