Meanwhile, on 2nd Avenue…

Near East Ninth Street outside the 13th Step … where one Santa has his own Beer Pong kit…



Photos via EVG reader Steven…

And so much for official SantaCon bars…

Noted

Santas taking a piss on a roof in the East Village. Nice. cc @evgrieve pic.twitter.com/Y86QTbwZ9g

— gaminette (@gaminette) December 13, 2014

Sign of the times?

EVG reader Riian Kant-McCormick spotted this outside Elsewhere Espresso on East Sixth Street between First Avenue and Second Avenue this morning…

These are apparently the participating bars in SantaCon 2014

SantaCon organizers plan to release this year's pub crawl route this evening.

Ahead of that, a curious East Village resident downloaded the official Santacon app that they are now advertising on their website.

The resident found that the participating bars are in the Midtown West/Murray Hill region: Pacha, Beer Authority, Houndstooth, Tempest, The Thirsty Fan, Slake, Red Room, Vivid Caberet, American Whiskey, Blarney Rock, The Australian, Stout, The Keg Room NYC, Feile, Blaggards, Reichenbach Beer Hall, Butterfield 8, Mustang Harry's, The Liberty, Suite 36, Mustang Sally's, Playwright Irish Pub, Galway Pub, Rick's Cabaret, Slattery's, Pioneers Bar, Jack Dempsey's, Foley's, Maru Karoke Lounge, Rattle 'n Hum, Nelly Spillane's, IchiUmi, Joshua Tree, 230 Fifth Avenue Rooftop & Lounge.

The pre-party starts at Pacha on West 46th Street.

The SantaCon website also notes that they are scaling back this year's festivities:

Due to the planned protests on Saturday, Santacon is scaling back this weekend's festivities in order to create the lowest possible impact on the city we love while still maintaining our glorious traditions this holiday season.

Santacon has respect and compassion for the hard-working municipal organizations of NYC, as well as for the important civil rights demonstrations currently shaping our city’s future. Thus, we are changing the format of this year’s Santacon.

This evening, all participating Santacon bars and venues will be announced on nycsantacon.com. Their halls will be decked, and they’ll be ready and waiting for Santa to come down their chimneys. PLEASE PATRONIZE THESE VENUES ONLY. If a venue isn’t on this list, it’s because they don’t want you there. Please move around throughout the day from venue to venue but spend most of your time inside, not on the streets.

Finally, it’s more important this year than ever to pace yourself, watch out for your elves, and stay safe. Fighting, public urination, and vandalism are unacceptable and a great way to ensure that there will be no Santacon in 2015. #DontScroogeSantacon

Meanwhile, the Village Pourhouse on Third Avenue and East 11th Street is still pretending to be an official SantaCon stop…

The SantaCon pre-party is in Hell's Kitchen

There seems to be some interest in where the annual SantaCon pub crawl will take place on Saturday.

As noted yesterday, SantaCon organizers told Community Board 3 officials that the official event will NOT take place in the East Village/Lower East Side. (Unlike last year.)

Apparently if you donate $10 to charity you get the early route information for SantaCon. (If not, then you have to wait until Friday for the details.)

One curious East Village resident forked over the $10 … and received a button that gets him or her into a private party at Pacha on West 46th Street Saturday morning at 11.

Given the starting time of this SantaCon private party, the resident figures Hell's Kitchen will be the neighborhood the groups hits on Saturday …

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.

Noted

Tweets arriving now ahead of the blessed event this Saturday...

Fighting, vandalism, littering, or public urination will SHUT DOWN SANTACON. Don’t be that Santa. #dontscroogesantacon

— santacon (@santacon) December 8, 2014

Santa is a GUEST in NYC. Respect all neighborhoods and the people who live there. http://t.co/bg8vMtGAC6 #dontscroogesantacon

— santacon (@santacon) December 8, 2014

Love Santacon? Then don’t Scrooge it up with piss, trash, violence, or vomit. #dontscroogesantacon

— santacon (@santacon) December 8, 2014

Details on the SantaCon 2014 destination will be released Friday.

A Santa-free incentive

As you probably know, SantaCon is fast approaching on Dec. 13.

Although organizers have yet to announce what neighborhood their participants will terrorize, Santa-clad bargoers will abound that day anyway everywhere whatever …

Which is why Jimmy's No. 43 at 73 E. Seventh St. between Second Avenue and Cooper Square is offering this happy-hour incentive: "If you don't dress up like Santa, you get $2 off drafts 12 noon - 6 p.m."

Uh-oh: SantaCon looking for another neighborhood for its participants to trash

[Photo from 2011 by Dave on 7th]

Per amNewYork:

Organizers for SantaCon will continue searching for a neighborhood for the booze-fueled charity bar crawl, deciding to stay out of Bushwick, according to an organizer.

And!

The organizer said Bushwick was one of a half-dozen neighborhoods SantaCon NYC was considering for the Dec. 13 event and that no neighborhood has been selected yet. The organizer declined to name the other neighborhoods.

Few people in Bushwick were rolling out the welcome mat. As Gawker put it in a headline: "Bushwick Bars to Boycott Drunken Disgusting Shitshow Known as SantaCon."

Back to amNewYork:

“Nobody wants it and nobody will allow it,” Ben Warren, owner of The Bodega and Heavy Woods, told amNewYork. “I'm just going to keep them out.”

Warren said he got firsthand experience of “the madness that ensues” during SantaCon while living in the East Village. Now as a bar owner, Warren said he would hire a few door people to keep Santas out of his bars.

“It's like we're preparing for battle,” he said.

Bushwick denizens were also worried about the whirlwind of hard-drinking Santas coming into their neighborhood in the name of charity.

“It's like basically coming to trash the neighborhood,” Matthew Christie, a 23 year-old Bushwick resident, said.

The East Village/Lower East Side served as HQ for the drunken disgusting shitshow last year. Suggestions for 2014?

Previously on EV Grieve:
SantaCon makes it official: The fucking thing starts in Tompkins Square Park

'Quite simply, SantaCon is a parasite' (48 comments)

Report: SantaCon isn't coming to this part of town in 2014

[SantaCon 2013 via EVG reader Steven Sonnenblick]

SantaCon, the annual charity event beloved by all save for a few curmudgeons who don't like to have fun, is apparently bypassing the East Village/Lower East Side this year.

This year's destination on Dec. 13? Bushwick, as Bushwick Daily first reported today.

So far, it looks like bar owners there are psyched, as they should be.

One bartender told Bushwick Daily:

“I’ve worked on SantaCon while bartending in the East Village. It’s the absolute worst thing ever. Worse than Saint Patrick’s Day! I literally can’t believe it’s coming to Bushwick!” he continued. “I can’t think of anyone that would let drunk vomiting Santas into their bars in this hood. I’m guessing they will be aimlessly walking around.”

As you know, most of the Santa-clad revelers are on their best behavior… of course there are always one or two bad apples as you'd expect in any crowd. (Good God! That Armory Show last year!)



Woo!

Anyway, Christmas came early here.

Per Jessica Roy at Daily Intelligencer:

East Village bars, which have long fought to ban the daytime bar crawl and will be spared this year's vomit puddles, must have made Santa's Nice List this year.