CB3 says SantaCon will not be held in the East Village or on the Lower East Side this year

[Photo by Katie Sokoler via Gothamist]

That's the official word from the Community Board 3 office. They apparently received word from SantaCon organizers, who volunteered the information that the pub crawl will not be happening in this area on Saturday.

CB3 covers the Lower East Side and part of Chinatown. The boundaries of the district are 14th Street on the north, the East River on the east and the south, and Fourth Avenue and the Bowery on the west, extending to Baxter and Pearl Streets and the Brooklyn Bridge south of Canal Street.

Of course you'll likely still see Santas going to and from whatever neighborhoods are playing host to the annual pub crawl for charity (difficult to type that with a straightface…).

No word until Friday apparently on where the Santas will congregate in what Gawker described as a "Drunken Disgusting Shitshow."

Meanwhile, the Voice checks in with a long form piece titled "Ho, Ho, Bro: How SantaCon Went From Joyful Performance Art to Reviled Bar Crawl."

Updated 11:38 a.m.

This in from Gothamist:

With the seasonal backlash against SantaCon in full swing, organizers of the infamous pub crawl have retained famous civil rights lawyer Norman Siegel to represent them.