POTTSVILLE, Pa. — Pottsville's St. Patrick's Parade scheduled for Saturday has been canceled.
Organizers released a statement Thursday morning saying that considering recent federal and state directives encouraging the restriction of gatherings, the parade is canceled.
"With all of the events throughout the world and throughout the country, we realized as much as we wanted to have a parade this year and celebrate our grand marshal, who is our mayor of Pottsville, we just really realized we can't have something like that this year. It's not appropriate," said parade chairman Daniel Koury.
Across the country, games and other events have been canceled for the foreseeable future as the coronavirus pandemic takes center stage. Here across northeastern and central Pennsylvania, a region that has a proud Irish heritage, it's hard for many to grasp the fact that there will be no St. Patrick's parades anywhere this weekend.
"There's just a spirit through town that's been resilient for years. It's really a shame, and it's really something that the town was really looking forward to," Koury said.
City restaurants like the Crimson House on Centre Street were expecting huge crowds on parade day. The restaurant ordered a bunch of food and drinks, and it's not sure what steps to take next because all of this is so new and unprecedented.
"We have to play it relatively safe, and for the time being, I think us and the neighboring restaurants are probably going to remain open, but that's day-to-day, but we won't be promoting it as a big St. Paddy's Day bash kind of thing," said owner Patrick Burns.
Parade officials said they are looking forward to a "grand celebration in 2021."
The parade in Pottsville has been a tradition for more than 40 years. Organizers were forced to cancel in 2015 because of rainy weather.
