Friday, December 7, 2018

ICYMI: Here comes SantaCon


[Image via @SantaCon]

As you likely heard by now, SantaCon 2018 is tomorrow (Saturday).

The woo-hooery starts tomorrow (still Saturday) at 10 a.m. at Plaza 33, 33rd Street and Seventh Avenue.

From there, the Santas will fan out across Midtown, Murray Hell, Midtown East, et al. Once again, the East Village will serve as a host planet for the harvesting. There are 15-plus participating bars — list here. (The 13th Step/The Step isn't on the list, though they usually have one of the longest lines of people in Santa hats.)

Solas on Ninth Street between Second Avenue and Third Avenue and The VNYL on Third Avenue between 12th Street and 13th Street are designated "Special Santa Venues," which require a $12 donation. As Gothamist noted, "they are larger and offer additional hellish delights such as undoubtedly terrible DJ, holiday decorations, 'sexy' bar games, rooftops, cash prizes, etc."

Meanwhile, some thoughts via Twitter... including a little campaigning for a mayoral run in 2021...


19 comments:

Anonymous said...

HAPPY PUKE DAY!

Giovanni said...

SatanCon Forecast: A freezing cold shitshow will blow through South Hell all day Saturday, with temperatures in the mid-20s in the morning, and windchills (along with the average age of Bridge and Tunnel participants) in the teens. Expect sudden downpours of loud drunken Bros, drunks impersonating Santa, and squealing, scantily-clad Instagram models throughout the day, followed by a steady stream of puke, spit, and a few random drunken sobs and teardrops. Use caution while navigating crowded sidewalks outside of bars and other areas where heavy puking tends to occur, such as schools, churches and other places of worship. Sunday morning is forecasted to be quiet and calm, with a 50% chance of a major hangover for those who are still wearing unfashionable red outfits, and a 100% chance that everyone else will be smiling and relieved that the annual unnecessary shitstorm is over.

Anonymous said...

As always, I will hunker down in my warm, cozy studio here in Alphabet City. Every year, I dread this day. I am not a prude or a Debbie Downer, but I don't enjoy listening to or witnessing hordes of people vomit, urinate, defecate, fornicate, burp, scream like lunatics, and bros acting like they own us and the neighborhood. I deeply resent the individual who created this ridiculous, borderline dangerous celebration, which unfortunately is somehow celebrated throughout the world. My heart goes out to all of those sequestered to their jobs in bars and restaurants whom have to put up with this utter BS. Stay safe.

Anonymous said...

“Strippers”??? You assholes.

Anonymous said...

I hate this day. Now it's not even a matter of staying home as the drunks have infiltrated my building and the party starts the day before and goes the whole weekend. They do nothing but destroy.

Anonymous said...

The biggest shit storm we as New Yorkers have to deal with each year. I bet your bottom dollar most whom participate in this event are bridge and tunnel. What I can't stand is the aftermath of everything the following morning. I've been known to step into puddles of puke and piss when I've exited the main door near my flat here in the EV. Not fun at all. During the chaos, I will be ordering take out and binge watching Netflix and Prime.

phaedrus4617 said...

I would love to see a complete list of EV bars hosting santacon, so I would know never to patronize them the rest of the year.

Anonymous said...

Wow, they got strippers now. Santacon is actual force for evil by this point.

Gojira said...

At 11:45 AM I was in line for the Cookie Walk, and a group of already-inebriated Santa-ettes in street clothes and St. Nick hats staggered by; one gal, obviously a budding detective honing her abilities, gave the (extremely long) line the stink eye, and slurred to her buddies, "None of them are dressed like Santa!"

Giovanni said...

There’s a video on Twitter that sums up this and every SantaCon: A group is standing in between two cars with one of their drunk buddies leaning on the hood since he canlt stand up, but of course he falls down drunk, right across the sidewalk. An innocent woman passing by does not see him in time and trips over his body, falling face first into the pavement. The video cuts off but it looks like she was hurt, andis looking down at her hands covered in blood from her nose. And and all you can hear is people in the crowd laughing.

Here’s the link: NYC SantaCon in a Nutshell

These are the true deplorables.

Anonymous said...

I was holed up sick inside all day so I have no idea what this year's pukefest was like on the ground, but these wily SantaCon d-bags have really wised up about promoting their event. I had completely forgotten it was coming, whereas we'd usually have several weeks of dumbass WOO HOOing leading up to the shitshow by now. Maybe it's dying? One can only hope.

Anonymous said...

I really hate the term "bridge and tunnel." Do a bunch of young idiots come here from Jersey or CT and act like lunatics? Sure. But just as many participants are the 3-to-a-studio parentally subsidized people in your East Village building who can't figure out how to throw trash away properly, and a large number of participants have been shown to be off-duty cops from the boroughs, and far be it for me to defend a bunch of drunk bro cops from Queens and Brooklyn whose participation in this thing is why we can't get it shut down, but they are certainly more authentic New Yorkers than anyone who uses the term "bridge and tunnel," who I highly doubt are lifelong Mahattanites. Maybe you were dropped on the island as infants via helicopter ... from Ohio.

Naw. You got here by B&T too, you classists.

Anonymous said...

@3:55: I feel sorry for you, and I hope you can find an appropriate way to make your feelings known.

@6:57pm: I don't order take-out on santacon b/c I wouldn't even subject the delivery guys to being out in that shitshow.

In my building, we had to "escort" several VERY aggressive drunk young women out of our lobby this afternoon. I only wish I'd had a spray bottle of water at hand, so they'd have been on the streets soaking wet in this cold weather. (And FWIW, for these drunken ho's to GET into our lobby, they had to make their way past two 7 foot-high gates AND another door.)

Disgusting, stupid B&T jackasses; stay home & vomit on your parents' beds.

Anonymous said...

If the Tompkins Square Dog Parade got moved to another location after having to put up a $1 million bond, why can't the jerks behind santacon be forced to do the same?? Or do they have a special "in" with someone in NYC government or the NYPD??

Because, let's face it, santacon has NOTHING to do with Christmas (in fact, it's viciously blasphemous toward Christmas; let's see them try "Hanukah-con" and find out how well that goes over).

No, santacon has EVERYTHING to do the "organizers" of this shitshow GLEEFULLY giving a big "fuck you" finger to EVERY ONE OF US, and to all of NYC. They are shitting on everything good about Christmas to enable a lot of jackass alkies, and they're shitting on OUR neighborhood just to say "ha, ha, you can't stop us from shitting on you!"

I'd be in favor of the organizers being arrested and locked up from Nov. 1st to Jan. 1st every fucking year.

BTW, where was the "nightlife mayor" during all this? Shouldn't she be cutting the ribbon at the starting gate in Penn Station, or popping open the first beer?

Anonymous said...

Per NY1.com: "The event's organizers say the event has raised over $400,000 for charitable causes."

I say: Make them prove it BEFORE you ever include that sentence in an article.

I wonder who does their accounting? Who distributes the $$$? Can anyone ever prove that most of the money gets distributed to actual legit charities? I'd love to see a forensic accountant go over the books for santacon (assuming they even *keep* any books).


Anonymous said...

Hmm. So Santacon is a charity, eh? I just checked Charity Navigator, which has names and Employer Identification Numbers for every registered charity in the United States, and there is no sign of them. How do we know any money is going to charity when there doesn't seem to be any conduit to send it to any charity?

sophocles said...

"Hmm. So Santacon is a charity, eh?"

I did some checking this morning and see that the charity is Participatory Safety, Inc, a 501(c)(3) corporation. Stefan Pildes is the President.

Their Char500 forms show that for 2016 they had income of 164K and donated 21K (rounding) to other organizations. In 2017 their income dropped to 108K but they donated much more, 48K. The forms don't show Pildes or the other officers taking any salary. One of the forms show a donation to World Hoop Day (Pil

sophocles said...

I pressed publish to quickly on my last comment...I am not a fan of Santacon, I don't see that the event itself serves any charitable purpose, but they are a charity and 48K is not a bag of coal. I don't know Pildes or his motives so I am reluctant to condemn the guy.

Anonymous said...

strip clubs have been part of the Santacon route since 2007