Savannah police plan to jail more out-of-towners over St. Patrick’s Day, and other misadventures


The ongoing story of inexplicable changes to St. Patrick’s Day has gotten a little creepier.

Check out this excerpt from Marcus Howard’s Savannah calls truce with rogue taxis for St. Patrick’s Day in yesterday’s Savannah Morning News:

The Chatham County Recorder’s Court will conduct night court during the festival period, said Savannah-Chatham police Lt. David Gay.

He said police have been directed to take any individual caught violating a city ordinance to county jail, unless he or she is a county resident and has valid identification.

Once bond is posted, they will be released.

“In the past, Recorder’s Court has allowed citing people and releasing them if they had valid ID and if they lived in one of the surrounding counties,” Gay said. “That has changed this year.”

Timothy Sheppard, Recorder’s Court clerk, said the policy is needed because visitors from all over the world come to the festival and have no incentive to pay a fine if they’re charged.

So any person not from Chatham County (sorry Effingham, Bryan, Liberty, and the rest!) who violates a city ordinance will end up in jail.

There are a lot of city ordinances, including the temporary one requiring $5 wristbands to drink outside in the expanded festival area on Friday, 3/14 and after 5 p.m. on Saturday 3/16.

Of course, according to the map at this link, the only wristband sales kiosk as one enters the zone from the south will be on Bull Street. So anyone walking with a drink on any other street will not see a kiosk until they have crossed over Broughton Street; all those people will be in violation of the law and subject to a fine and a trip to the jail. The details about wristbands in the FAQ here include no mention of jail, just “court costs totaling up to $67” if you’re planning to drink in the “control zone, otherwise known as party central.”

When did Broughton Street turn into “party central”?

I don’t think it will be possible to enforce any of this strictly or consistently, but some selective enforcement is probably inevitable, and someone is going to wind up in jail for doing things that would be legal every other day of the year.

For other complaints about the mess that we’ve made of what should be a fun, welcoming weekend in Savannah, check out my City Talk column today: What does Savannah want St. Patrick’s day to be?

Here are the basics:

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