How Much NJ Drinks On St. Pat’s Day Compared to Other States

Remember in “It’s A Wonderful Life” when George Bailey got his wish to never have been born? One of the great juxtapositions was how nice and quaint Bedford Falls was with him and how seedy and hard Pottersville was without him. It seemed like there was a bar on every corner.

Well, New Jersey is somewhere between those two images when it comes to St. Patrick’s Day.

The gambling website time2play.com did a survey to determine which states drink the most to the least on the day everyone’s wearing green. First of all, wouldn’t you automatically guess Massachusetts to be the most with its strong Irish population? It’s not. They’re 7th.

Pennsylvania is number 1. They drink an average of 4.26 drinks per person. Compare that to Massachusetts’ 3.80.

So, New Jersey being a neighboring state to number 1, we must rank at least in the top 5, right? I mean, look at the damage we can do in Hoboken alone on SantaCon.

Nope. We are smarter or lamer than that depending on your perspective. Try number 20. That’s right. We are right in the middle of the pack. On St. Patrick’s Day we have an average of 3.07 drinks each.

Who is drinking the least? You’re going to guess Utah, right? The whole Morman thing? Nope. They rank 42nd.

The state that drinks the least on Saint Patrick’s Day is Nebraska. Only 0.78 drinks per person.

So here’s typical Jersey for you. Even though we have 19 other states that drink more than us on the holiday, we are number 1 when it comes to money spent on booze. The average we spend on Saint Patrick’s Day is $57.76.

Maybe free drinks for the next year should have been in Murphy’s budget address instead of free state park admission. After the last two years, I think we could all use it.