DETROIT, MI -- Detroit Police Lt. Kenneth Gardner says St. Patrick's Day Parade revelers should keep their booze off the street.

Police will be enforcing open-alcohol laws in Corktown this Sunday, he said.

"You can't just stand on the corner ... and drink," he said. "Certainly, we wouldn't allow that."

The lieutenant said it can be a difficult law for police to enforce, considering the sheer volume of people and the tendency for rule breakers to put their adult beverages in nondescript containers, Solo cups for instance.

"You can't sniff in people's cups to see what's in them," Garndner said, "but if you smell an alcoholic beverage, certainly you can investigate."

There is a bit of a dichotomy at the Corktown parade that always falls on the Sunday preceding March 17, St. Patrick's Day.

Amid the thick crowds -- an estimated 65,000 in 2013 -- you may see fathers and mothers pulling children in wagons with green shamrock face paint one moment, and the next, a 20-something college kid clearly intoxicated, cursing

belligerently

.

Organizers said last year when the temperature was in the mid-60s parade patrons became especially wily. This led to the decision to have the parade and Corktown Races two hours earlier this year. The races now begin at 9:30 a.m. and the parade, usually at 2 p.m., now starts at noon.

"We just felt if we got started a little bit earlier -- the last two years it's been 65 degrees and we had 65,000 people down here and they got partying too much," said Ron Cooley, who co-owns Slow's Barbecue with his sons and is a member of the United Irish Societies parade organizing committee. "It's a family affair, we would like people to have the respect of the parade to be a family event for young children."

The projected high temperature on Sunday is 22 degrees -- the coldest temperature for a parade in more than 20 years -- which police believe may lead to sparser crowds this year.