Riverhead judge named grand marshal of Jamesport St. Patrick’s Day parade

Riverhead Town Justice Allen Smith has been named grand marshal of the March 28 Jamesport St. Patrick’s Day parade.

The East End Emerald Society, an organization founded last year to host a St. Patrick’s Day parade in Jamesport — Riverhead’s first-ever St. Paddy’s parade — announced the 2015 parade’s grand marshal on its website last week.

The group is honoring Smith at a fundraising reception Feb. 21, from 7 to 10 p.m. at Jason’s Vineyard in Jamesport, Emerald Society cofounder John Cuddy said. Admission is $25 at the door and includes food and refreshments and music by a DJ as well as a special appearance by the Long Ireland Beer Co. pipers.

March of the Leprechauns, a fundraising SantaCon-style pub crawl— dubbed a LepreCon— is planned for March 7 in downtown Riverhead, which hosted its first SantaCon in December. See prior story, “Move over Santa, here comes the LepreCon.”

The East End Emerald Society is working to raise money to cover the cost of pipe bands at its second annual parade.

“Their fees are $1,500 to 2,000 per band,” Cuddy said.

“We’ve already secured the Suffolk County Police Emerald Society Pipes and Drum and the Long Ireland pipe band,” Cuddy said. He said the group is “in talks with” the NYPD pipe band and the Eastern Long Island Pipes and Drums. Whether they will be performing at the parade depends on whether the East End Emerald Society can raise the money to pay them, Cuddy said.

The parade had about 40 groups participate last year in its inaugural run, Cuddy said. It drew a large crowd of onlookers, too. It’s going to be bigger in 2015, Cuddy said.

Smith, 70, is a former town supervisor (1976-1979), town attorney and deputy county attorney who has sat on the town court bench since 2000.

A Jamesport resident, Smith is a graduate of Hobart College and Syracuse University School of Law. He maintains a private law practice in Riverhead. He is a 37-year member of the Riverhead Fire Department, Red Bird Hook and Ladder Company, a 46-year member of the Riverhead Rotary Club and a past member of the Riverhead Board of Education.

Below are scenes from the 2014 St. Patricks Day Parade in Jamesport
(RiverheadLOCAL file photos by Peter Blasl):