- City officials have agreed to issue a permit for the South Side Irish Parade to be held again this March, despite concerns about security connected to the St. Patrick’s Day event that organizers shut down in 2009 after widespread drunken fighting and assaults on Chicago police officers.
The South Side Irish Parade Committee hopes to return the Beverly neighborhood event to its family-oriented roots while continuing to draw the massive crowds that, after the parade was launched in 1979, became a bonanza for local taverns and other Southwest Side businesses.
Organizers of the March 11 event are considering setting up checkpoints manned by private security guards, making the parade route along Western Avenue shorter and cracking down more forcefully on outdoor drinking in an effort to quell unruly behavior in nearby parks and residential streets, parade committee chairman Joseph Connelly said Saturday.
Of course, this could be a model for all future parades and festivals. Pay your own way, maintain your own security, assume all of your own liability. Apply this to the PR fest, PRIDE, Billiken and assorted other celebrations.