Fri 09|03|10

St. Patrick’s Day Pub Crawl brings big crowd to downtown Fort Smith

Submitted by The City Wire staff on Sun, 03/14/2010 - 12:55pm.

 

story and photos by Joel Rafkin
timefrzr@cox.net

Garrison Avenue in downtown Fort Smith was a happening place to be Saturday (Mar. 13) night as party-goers hopped from bar to bar during the annual Pub Crawl celebrating St. Patrick's Day.

The beer was flowing freely and nearly free with 22 oz. souvenir cups initially purchased for $5 but refillable for $2 at participating merchants.

Lines with wait times of about 30 minutes were common at several popular bars. Ron Le, a bouncer at Webby D's, said there was a line that began at 7 p.m. and had not abated all night. The capacity of the venue is 175 people and as people slowly trickled out, an equal number were admitted to watch the final performance of the band Ollie's Trash Can.

Other live music could be heard at La Huerta where The Blue Collar Band performed.

The hoots and hollers of happy celebrants were drowned out when in the proximity of MS Mobile DJ's converted ambulance that pumped out the tunes and showed music videos on several monitors. Marc Sparks, the owner of the DJ service, also had a remote controlled camera that he panned and zoomed to capture crowd video that was streamed live to a large inflatable screen.

Fort Smith police cruised the avenue on bikes and cars to keep order although the party scene was one of good times and no trouble in the two hours this observer spent bar hopping, taking photographs and talking to people.