Holding back the tide of green beer on Ezra Avenue

Why can’t the region learn to love St. Patrick’s Day?

What was King Canute thinking when he ordered the tides to stop?

Historians say this ancient King of England fully understood his command was impossible, and was merely demonstrating his humility before powers greater than his own. Today, however, Canute has become shorthand for describing someone who foolishly misjudges the scope of their own authority.

Which interpretation best explains that historic event known as the Ezra Avenue St. Patrick’s Day student street party?

“Our intention is not to have a street party,” Waterloo Regional Police Chief Bryan Larkin declared prior to this year’s bash.

The result? Waterloo’s biggest St. Patrick’s Day street party ever. Estimates put the peak crowd at more than 22,000, a huge increase from last year.

Tide, meet king. King, meet tide. Despite such utter failure, Larkin is doubling down on his plans to put an end to this annual rite of pre-exam springtime bacchanalia. Afterwards, the chief said “we will be meeting with our community partners to discuss how we move forward in terms of shutting down this unsanctioned, unlawful and unsafe gathering.” He’ll need more than the luck o’ the Irish to pull that off.

The region’s animosity toward this tribute to mock-Irishness is beyond odd given the enormous similarities it shares with Waterloo Region’s favourite fall event: Oktoberfest. Both are beer-focussed seasonal events featuring drinking in places where drinking is not usually permitted, at the behest of obscure foreign phrases and music and while wearing unusual cultural attire.

Yet Oktoberfest is a regional imperative, while everyone gets their shillelaghs in a twist over St. Patrick’s Day.

“Visitors are not welcome to Waterloo on March 17,” the usually affable Waterloo Mayor Dave Jaworsky said in an interview. “There are a lot of out-of-towners coming who aren’t particularly invested in our community.”

It’s a strange turn of phrase to be coming from city hall. Oktoberfest visitors aren’t particularly “invested in our community” either. But we still roll out of the welcome mat — and the beer barrel — for their benefit.

Not only is the mayor actively telling visitors to go away, but he’s got some rather unsettling plans for next year.

At the top of his list is a scheme to send threatening letters to local bus companies if they decide to bring students from other universities to Waterloo on March 17, 2019. “Buses bringing people to Waterloo may be pulled over,” Jaworsky hinted darkly, suggesting petty safety checks and other abuses of authority could make it “tough” on bus companies heading to town with party-minded students.

“As a business, you don’t want to get in trouble with the law,” he advised. “So if people are looking to rent out a bus to come to Waterloo for St. Patrick’s Day, maybe they should just pass on that one.” Do we really want our mayor doing an amateur hour Godfather routine?

The enormous difference in how our local governments treat Oktoberfest and St. Patrick’s Day rests on one word in Larkin’s recent statement — “unsanctioned.”

Oktoberfest is a great regional tradition because local governments are invested in it. St. Patrick’s Day, on the other hand, is a spontaneous event by and for university students who’ve decided — despite what police, politicians and university administrators say — that they’d like to drink a beer on March 17 while standing on Ezra Avenue.

And outside of a G-20/helmet-and-truncheon response, there’s not a lot anyone can do to change that. St. Patrick’s Day is both a demonstration of the power of democracy, and an affront to democratic authority.

With their abilities thus impugned, our local powers-that-be seem determined to reassert their control by whatever means necessary, even if it involves setting up a municipal border patrol.

We also hear stage whispers about how lucky we’ve been to avoid significant injuries. The subtext here is that a single incident could unleash the G-20 treatment.

Every preventable death is a tragedy, of course. But last year an inebriated, university-aged male left an Oktoberfest event and drowned in the Grand River. No one argues this unfortunate event should mark the end of Oktoberfest. Why place the same burden on St. Patrick’s Day?

Several years ago Waterloo did allow a beer tent on Seagram Drive in an effort to “divide and conquer” the Ezra Avenue partiers.

It was declared a failure after most of the tickets were sold to students from McMaster, Guelph and Western. For any other public event, this would be considered a success. And why constantly fight success?

Given the obvious, overwhelming and apparently unquenchable demand for an annual explosion of green bowler hats, goofy Irish sayings and beer in the morning, it’s entirely within our region’s ability to turn St. Patrick’s Day into a fully sanctioned, safe and successful event.

Some folks are even saying we should go the Full O’Monty and organize a parade to go with it. Why not?

And if the real appeal to St. Patrick’s Day lies in its unsanctioned, thumb-yournose-at-authority reputation, maybe turning it into a chamber of commerce familyfriendly production is the best way to finally tame it.

After all, nothing kills a kegger like having your Mom show up in her “The Leprechaun made me do it!” T-shirt.