By Jason O. Gilbert
Dec. 12, 2013
ON Saturday, a festive, besotted mob of 20- and 30-somethings, decked out in various measures of Santa Claus dress and undress, will descend on the bars of lower New York City and rain down Christmas cheer like spoiled eggnog.
This obnoxious event is SantaCon. For those living in peaceful oblivion, SantaCon is an annual tradition in which revelers dress up as Kriss Kringle (or, at least, put on a Santa hat) and participate en masse in an often literal bar crawl, cramming 12 nights of Christmas boozing into a single afternoon.
Though its exact origins are somewhat murky, SantaCon as we know it probably first occurred in 1994, when members of a prank-happy urban adventure club stormed the streets of San Francisco in Santa outfits as a subversive expression of anti-commercialism and protest theater. Since then, the Saint Nick takeover has shed its dissident roots and expanded into a more traditional booze-athon, with SantaCon events taking place in more than 300 cities in 44 countries.
The largest is in New York City. Though the tradition may have started as a counterculture act, participating in the Big Apple’s version of SantaCon is about as anti-establishment as a trip to Disney World.
The Santas — and if you need to imagine a typical participant, just think of Billy Bob Thornton in “Bad Santa,” if the character were 24 and worked at Bain Capital — generally arrive via bridge, tunnel, subway and, perhaps this year, CitiBike. In the past, they have convened in Midtown and marched down to the East Village, where the majority of the day’s jubilations typically occur; those who were still conscious then took the train to terrorize Brooklyn. Chronologically, SantaCon lasts from about 10 a.m. until whatever time the last Santa passes out on a park bench somewhere.
Indeed, SantaCons of years past have been distinguished by sexism, drunkenness, xenophobia, homophobia and enough incidents of public vomiting and urination to fill an infinite dunk tank. Despite these rampant violations, the departing police commissioner, Raymond W. Kelly, recently praised SantaCon, claiming that it “makes New York New York.”
Perhaps most distressing about SantaCon is its size and the way that it shuts down and befouls dozens of blocks. Any East Villager (I am one) can tell you that the event makes doing absolutely anything beyond one’s front stoop an impossibility, unless you own swamp waders and a riot shield. Last year, an estimated 30,000 carousers participated in the festivities.
But really, it’s not the disruption or the noise that rankles. New Yorkers can endure street closures and inconveniences for any number of events so long as there is a beneficent impulse, or an obvious reason for the disruption. For a New York City event of its size, however, SantaCon is distinctive, and arguably impressive, in that it contributes absolutely zero value — cultural, artistic, aesthetic, diversionary, culinary or political — to its host neighborhood. Quite simply, SantaCon is a parasite.
Santa Con apologists point to its sizable charitable donations (a $10 donation to charity is required to “officially” participate), and the sugar rush of money injected to local business (especially alcohol business) owners. But the ends don’t always justify the means; and when the means include a neighborhood of kids having to watch simulacra of beloved childhood figures stumbling around, picking fights with passers-by — well, the ends aren’t justified. Charity is not a quid pro quo proposition.
In November, a New York police lieutenant, John Cocchi, wrote an open letter urging his district’s bar owners not to serve obviously inebriated Santas, and it appears that the melee will skip Midtown this year. More recently, The Daily News reported that SantaCon’sorganizers would work more closely with the Police Department, providing detailed information about the traditionally secret bar crawl route, and stationing 80 “helper elves” along the route to ensure that things don’t get out of hand.
That’s a good start, but it seems a bit like closing the stable door after the reindeer have bolted. It’s unlikely that some well-intentioned volunteers will be able to control a meaningful fraction of the boozed-up mob. Meanwhile, history has proved that SantaCon Santas are incapable of self-governing: Years of lax regulation have emboldened them to spill their base instincts on the streets, without consequence.
What seems required, then, is a Police Department approach that is less Ray Kelly and more John Cocchi: one that recognizes SantaCon as disruptive, rather than benign. If our police force can actively prevent the abhorrent behavior that residents have become accustomed to — either by more aggressive ticketing, or just through an increased presence that discourages misdemeanor crime — SantaCon should be allowed to proceed as the charitable, cheerful, harmless festival that event press officers paint it as.
Otherwise, perhaps New York should banish the Santas to the North Pole.
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