When my cab driver and I got to the East Village and saw that it was Drunk Santa day, we both yelled "NOOOOOOO" in unison #vomitbeards
— Amy Rose Spiegel (@AmyRosary) December 15, 2012
Today is SantaCon in the East Village so be prepared for Santa to barf down your chimney.
— Bobby Graves (@bigcitybobby) December 15, 2012
There's a lost Santa on my train this morning, apparently he didn't get the memo that douchebag day was yesterday #Santacon
— Obi Anyanwu (@obianyanwu) December 16, 2012
#santacon is the most ridiculous thing that happens in NY instagr.am/p/TTZPysH0WJ/
— NinaHens (@NinaHens) December 16, 2012
What's the right age to tell your kids that Santa is a drunk girl crying on the sidewalk in the East Village?
— mattcutler (@mattcutler) December 16, 2012
And those "santas" who are completely wasted and destroying the East Village.Congratulations.#fail
— Rafael Mateo (@ChezChefMateo) December 16, 2012
If u r in the EastVillage, safe home.There are a ton of drunk hooligans dressed as Santa vandalizing and harassing people! #whoseidea?
—Douglas Turner (@TurnerDouglas) December 16, 2012
serious q: when did santacon become so loathed? is it a “leading indicator of the east village’s decline” sort of thing?
— maura johnston (@maura) December 15, 2012
OMG. Beware of hitting the east village. There is a mob of idiots 2 blocks long trying to get into the 13th step. God speed.
— Vanessa Bermúdez (@vbermudez) December 15, 2012
Avoiding the East Village because of Santacon. How do you make me want to punch a frat bro even more? Put him in a Santa costume!
— Jordan Bowes (@jbowesmusic) December 15, 2012
Fucking #santacon. Stay away from the east village if you value your sanity, peeps.
— Joshua Conkel (@JoshuaConkel) December 15, 2012
@davidgustav Drunken #santacon chicks BEGGING the bodega guys to use the bathroom. He threw them out! WOOO! #eastvillage
— Liberation (@liberationnyc) December 15, 2012
17 comments:
Yaknow, I was young, stupid and vapid once (if not that particular flavor of derp), and I don't want to disparage young people answering the call of biology and the liquor industry and getting WOO-pid en masse from time to time -- even if events like these, and increasingly East Village bars generally, tend to draw the very douchiest of the douchey. But maybe they could do this shit in Murray Hill or Hoboken next year? Might be a shorter wobble home for many of the participants, and we East Villagers, who host a slightly lower-WOO version of this every weekend, could take a breather
I went to Whole Foods among other grocers on Saturday morning and took a cab back with arms full of sacks. My cab dropped me off right at Sunny's at 6/B. A group of Santers were hailing the cab before I could even get my credit card swiped. As soon as I got out the "Off Duty" lights went on and the doors were locked. Mind you this was at 11:30am.
The Santers were furious and were yelling expletives at the driver.
I was trapped in a subway car with over a dozen of these bozos and their fellow travelers, all the way through the tunnel to Brooklyn. Where, true to form, they all got out in Williamsburg. Ugh.
CB#6 passed a resolution banning bar crawls in their catchment area, and demanding that the state SLA step in and put some kind of regulatory monitoring on such events. I wrote to Susan Stetzer asking for CB#3 to do the same, and got back a snarky reply saying they had no intention of doing any such thing because it would not work, and she thought it was ridiculous that CB#6 had passed such an unenforceable ban. I wrote back that at least they were trying, and obviously concerned about their neighbors, but funnily enough got no answer.
To Anonymous #1:
The funny thing is, they were in Murray Hill this time. And in Midtown. And Chelsea. And Flatiron. And both sides of the Village. And Lower Manhattan. And all throughout Brooklyn.
The "event" itself is almost irrelevant now. No one is taking much direction or guidance from them. It's 30,000 people. 25,000 are ill-mannered drunks looking for any excuse to get wasted. It's now more of a citywide holiday that no one asked for. And "containment" is now impossible because we don't have any truly open public spaces to fit that many people - except 300 bars at a time that squeeze in 100 people.
I was thinking, since so many cops were on special duty this year to keep things organized, the organizers may end up with a big bill for police overtime next year. That'll change their priorities quickly
Gojira:
You can't regulate public assembly, and drinking in bars is legal. Stetzer had it right, from a legal point of view.
This is one of those problems that might need to be solved with honey, not vinegar.
I thought vinegar was more appropriate for douches.
Public assembly is very regulated in this country, but for something as big and as disorganized as this, I don't know if there's much you can do about it.
The only thing I think that would make a difference is if participation by bars and restaurants in Santacon was referenced at Community Board meetings. When bars' licenses are renewed, complaints are brought up by Susan, people who sign up to speak, and by members of the committee. These complaints are ones that would certainly pertain to what happens in Santacon--noise, sidewalk blocking, trash, and vomiting. So if your bar is a participant in Santacon, the CB SLA Committee should be more reticent to renew your license. Such a strong, tangible deterrent would make a difference.
My last comment on this shit fest. During the day, I was in Union Square and Penn Station on my way to NJ. Penn station was mobbed with these DB’s. This is the same MO as St. Patrick’s raised to the 10th power . At least ST. Patrick’s had (not anymore) some working class cred to it. And did you notice, this event was at least 99% cracker? So how cool can this vomitorium be? In my way into NJ Transit on 31st street and 7th, there were two African American cops standing guard at the entrance. All 3 of us watched the Bro/Woo pasty drunken parade go by for about 5 minutes. I then I turned to both them before I descended the stairs and said to them, "Time to call in the air strike!”. They both then had huge grins on their faces, made the otherwise very shitty day tolerable.
I say we just give them a damn parade -- we put up with all sorts of drunken douchebaggery on St. Patrick's Day, The Puerto Rican Parade, the West Indian Parade, etc.
Make them get a permit and give them a street to march down in their dopey costumes. At least that might contain the "party."
I recommend the FDR. With traffic.
It was terrible, in fact it was the worse one of these yet, in terms of sheer volume. I can confirm that it reached well beyond the EV--Murray Hill, Union Square, etc. even Stye-Town!!! But I have no complaints, just like I didn't complain about the flood waters from Sandy, what's the use. Santacon is merely an amped-up version of just about any regular old EV weekend. It's just the way it is these days. The EV has basically merged with NYU and Murray Hill. That's the vibe I get anyways.
@ Anon 9:34- Right on driver!
correct me if i'm wrong, but this event is different than any other weekend night in the EV and City, how, exactly? Because they're wearing a santa hat?
Its different because thousands of people invade the city to binge drink and act like a-holes.
I spent Saturday with my mom who was in town for the weekend. On University / 12th Street we saw a bunch of drunk Santas walked right into oncoming traffic, nearly getting hit by a car. The drunk Elf with them yelled 'What are you doing???' The reply: "It's New York City! Who cares!" and punches the car.
Later in the afternoon we were in the bodega on 2nd Ave and 9th Street. It was filled with drunk Santas, yelling, buying more beer and making it impossible for the sober people to move around the store let alone shop. We eventually made our way to the back of the store where a bunch of drunk Elf girls were yelling at the workers in their back office, demanding to use the bathroom. After a loud back and forth the girls were refused access to the employee-only bathrooms and knocked over merchandise on the way out.
We go back to my apartment and find a drunk Santa urinating on the front of my building, a stream of pee flowing from the building, across the sidewalk and down to the curb. My mom says "real nice!" and the Santa urinating shakes his dick and says to her "Don't worry, I'm only jacking off."
We go back out later and the sidewalk from 9th Street - 10th Street on Second Avenue is filled with hundreds of drunk santas trying to get into the 13th Step and Professor Thom's. The cops are there, yelling at them through bullhorns, ordering them to disperse. They do nothing.
These were the personal experiences we had in 4 hours worth of time. I can't remember this pub crawl being so large and out of control.
right no one else ever pisses on the streets of the East village.
To downplay NOTORIOUS LIB's nightmare story above with a simple sarcastic throw away comment like that, filled with the same faux-perspective you hear when people remind others of their "first world problems," tells me you're either a SantaCon participant or much less enlightened than you think you are.
That story is awful and no one should have to go through that. SantaCon is one of the most, if not THE most, detestable things about the EV, and so obviously it belongs in Hoboken.
I come to NY twice a year to visit a relative. I love the City and the strength and courage of it's people. I visit during Pride Weekend and always have a blast. Christmas is the other time I come to visit. I have to say that never in my life have I seen such an appalling and disgusting display of human behavior as last weekend's exhibit of 'SantaCon'! How is this allowed to go on year after year?! Mobs of drunken 20-somethings, their female counterparts in an attempt to dress as elves, looked more like refugees from 'The Best Little Whorehouse in The North Pole' gone totally awry. The kicker was an douche bag dressed in red (I cannot bring myself to call him 'Santa') urinating in plain sight into a building corner! I take it some grown-up takes credit and is in charge of this debacle; don't you understand what an insult this is to the people of NY? After all the tragedies, blackouts, hurricanes everyone in the city has endured over the years, why force them to endure something so wrong on so many levels? Who ever you are, shame on you for not only condoning but allowing this to go on. I'd had have to put you in the same bottom-of-sewer-level-awashed in-vomit-up-to-your-knees type of person because it is obvious to me that you are indeed as they.
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