The annual St. Patrick’s Day Parade in Albany is this Saturday, but one thing will be noticeably missing: alcohol. 

St. Patricks Day Celebration
Brian Kersey/Getty Images
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The parade will be held from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. Thousands of people will flock to Central Avenue between Quail Street and Washington Avenue, part of State Street and Lodge Street.

Open containers of alcoholic beverages will be prohibited. According to Mayor Kathy Sheehan, this will be an attempt to help curb underage drinking and drunken rowdiness, something that’s tarnished the parade for years. Paul Collins, a member of the parade committee, claims that the parade committee is “1,000 percent supportive.”

There’s even a hotline phone number set up that the police want people to use to report anyone that has an open container at the parade. It’s 518-300-0570. This will also be the number for people to use for non-emergency calls. This has been set up so 911 doesn’t get swamped.

One thing that prompted action by Mayor Sheehan was something that she personally saw at last year’s parade. She saw some of the people that were at the parade urinate near her car. According to the story in the Times Union, many of the business owners along the parade route have been requesting something like this for quite some time.

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