NEW BEDFORD, Mass. (AP) – There won’t be any more giant-sized cups of Madeira wine at next month’s Feast of the Blessed Sacrament. Organizers of the traditional four-day celebration of Madeiran culture that draws more than 300,000 visitors to New Bedford have decided to stop selling 20-ounce servings of the 38-proof wine.

“We felt it was getting out of control with the larger sizes, and we did this in response to a public safety issue,” feast committee member Ed Camara told The Standard Times of New Bedford.

“You had people in their late 20s buying the larger size and asking if we had a straw,” he said. “Give me a break here. This is a wine designed as an after-dinner sweet drink. It’s not supposed to be a scotch and water.”

The wine, which has a 19 percent alcohol content, is imported in wooden barrels by the committee under an exclusive arrangement with the island of Madeira.

The festival will still sell three-ounce and seven-ounce cups of the wine, which has been a staple during the 92-year history of the feast celebrating Portuguese culture and religion.

The feast committee also will continue requiring wine purchasers to wear wrist bracelets on which vendors mark their intake, and will move the sellers to a central location.

“I think it makes a very strong statement that you’re not going to get out of there intoxicated without us knowing about it,” said City Councilor Debora Coelho, a resident of the North End neighborhood that hosts the feast.

Jenn Braga, 29, of Fairhaven, who said she has visited the feast the last three years, said eliminating the larger servings is a “double-edged sword.”

“It’s a good idea because you do minimize the public intoxication, but you also take away from the whole cultural aspect of the feast,” she said. “That’s what’s been done on the island and here for years.”

New Bedford Police Chief Ronald E. Teachman said eliminating the 20-ounce servings, only five ounces short of a regular bottle of wine, was a “responsible act.”

“I think everybody has stepped up to make the feast what it’s supposed to be – a safe place for family and friends to come, a tourist attraction and a celebration of Madeiran culture,” he said.

The Feast of the Blessed Sacrament runs from Aug. 3 to 6 this year.