Naperville won't pick up slack from South Side Irish parade

Don't look to Naperville as a bastion of green for those mourning the demise of Chicago's South Side Irish Parade.

West Suburban Irish leaders, who stage Naperville's annual St. Patrick's Day parade through downtown, aren't sending a welcome wagon to Beverly.

"No, we're not going to have a new South Side parade here in Naperville," said Chuck Corrigan, president of the West Suburban Irish. "We're not going to be reaching out saying, 'come here to Naperville now that you don't have a place to get drunk and pee on someone's yard anymore.'"

Considered a family friendly event with no liquor sales during the two-hour parade, Naperville's event is far different from the legendary parade along South Western Avenue.

For starters, a big crowd for Naperville's parade is about 6,000. South Side Parade organizers are complaining they can no longer control the crowd of roughly 300,000 - which essentially is the equivalent of the entire populations of Naperville and Aurora combined.

The biggest problem Naperville police had to contend with at this year's parade was the removal of two cars from along the parade route, officials said. Meanwhile, police at the South Side Parade removed more than 50 people for a variety of misdeeds ranging from disorderly conduct to aggravated assault, according to published reports.

"One of the promises or guarantees I made when I started the parade in 1993 was to (police Chief) Dave Dial and that was there would be no beer-drinking, pubs open or any of that kind of thing," said West Suburban Irish co-founder Kevin Dolan. "We would welcome the south siders as long as they realize that this is a family parade."

City officials said no event staged in Naperville has ever garnered a crowd like the South Side Irish Parade draws.

The Naperville Exchange Club's annual Ribfest during Fourth of July weekend maxes out at around 60,000, organizers said. City officials aren't sure if the city's infrastructure could even handle an influx of 300,000 St. Patrick's Day revelers.

"We haven't even discussed that," said Jennifer Runestad, a public information coordinator in the city's transportation, engineering and development department.

Dolan said the Naperville event may grow now that there are fewer other options for parade-goers, but it won't be due to any attempts to lure revelers from Beverly.

"We wouldn't by any stretch try to replace the South Side Irish Parade," he said, "but now by hook or by cranny it is an alternative."