For decades, St. Louis’ Mardi Gras celebration has operated under rules designed to keep patrons safe and the neighborhood happy: Gas stations are not permitted to sell bottles of booze on the day of the event, and any bars serving outdoors must pour drinks into plastic cups to keep cans and bottles off the street.
Those rules have changed, and neighbors aren’t happy. Amanda Ramcharan, president of the Soulard Restoration Group, says the city’s excise commissioner informed them at a meeting last week that it was no longer enforcing the ban on gas station sales—and that bars would be allowed to serve drinks in bottles and cans, even outdoors.
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The city now says part of that was a misunderstanding: Bottles are still banned. But, under the city’s current catering licenses, drinks may now be served in cans. The city is also no longer barring gas stations from making sales, although it says all of the gas stations within the festival’s footprint have voluntarily agreed to forgo them. (A city spokesman was not able to explain when the rules about cans changed, or why.)
Ramcharan was glad to hear that glass, at least, is forbidden. But she’s not thrilled about cans now being allowed. “One concern is that people will use these as projectiles,” she says. “People are drinking in public, and we want to have a safe event.”
As for Mardi Gras Inc., president Mack Bradley says the changes did not come at its behest and he’s not sure what led to them. He says the outdoor bars operated by Mardi Gras Inc. will continue to follow the previous rules and pour into plastic cups, even if cans are now permitted.
“We know that this is a concern the neighborhood has, and we share that concern,” he says, “Therefore we’re going to keep doing this the way we’ve been doing it, which is to pour into an open cup. We think that’s the best way to do it.” It is not clear how many bars will follow suit.
Why It Matters: Soulard has long been home to one of the bigger Mardi Gras celebrations in the nation, with an estimated $23 million regional impact. But while neighbors are known to get in on the fun, having so many visitors throng what’s already a dense residential neighborhood can also lead to tensions. And events like last year’s PrideFest afterparty in The Grove—where bar owners said they couldn’t afford the expense of private security, only to see crowds swell and the police have to shut the event down—present a cautionary tale that organizers are determined to avoid.
Says Bradley, “We spent a lot of time thinking about two things: How can we do this safely, and how can we do it successfully, so everybody has fun? Because you can’t just do one. If it’s no fun, nobody comes back. And if it’s fun, but it’s not safe, also, no one comes back.”
What’s Next: Mardi Gras’ grand parade kicks off downtown at 11 a.m. Saturday before heading to Soulard. Once again, Mardi Gras Inc. plans to have security stationed at the main egresses into the neighborhood. Says Bradley, “We have had our ‘no cans, no coolers, no bottles, no backpacks’ policy for 26 years, and we feel very strongly about that.”
