“Just an early warning to anybody who wants to come into the city and raise hell dressed up as Santa Claus-we’re not going to tolerate it”, Police Commissioner Bratton said today.
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Thousands of ho-ho-ho-ho-ing Santas began their bi-borough procession Saturday morning from Brooklyn’s Williamsburg neighborhood en route to lower Manhattan, a route organizers disclosed to the public for the first time.
Interim Town Manager Dave Ziomek told 22News it’s not the kind of event the town would endorse and Fire Chief Tim Nelson says they’ll have all five ambulances operating.
Everyone there is “willing to dress up, drink, meet people, and have fun”, the 29-year-old photographer said by email. And SantaCon’s lawyer, Norman Siegel, said Saturday the group aimed to self-police anyone who got out of line.
This year, more than 2,500 Santas participated, roaming the streets of downtown in their best Santa-wear and spreading Christmas cheer across the city.
MTA police officers at Grand Central Terminal and Penn Station in New York City and train stations on the route will be enforcing the liquor restriction, according to a news release.
Organizers of the seasonally scorned SantaCon – the Christmastime procession caricatured by detractors as bar-crawling revelers dressed as St. Nick – are promising the ersatz Santa Clauses will behave this year. But the backlash appears to have eased as organizers have worked to re-brand the event as a good-spirited fundraiser for charity.
Tracing its origins to a prankish, anti-consumerist gathering in San Francisco in 1994, SantaCon has mushroomed into events in hundreds of cities, with New York’s generally the biggest.
Siegel said last year’s SantaCon counted no arrests or summonses; police said they had no information on any.
To four-time SantaCon-goer Michael Fincher, troubled times were an argument for the celebration, not against it.
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“It incorporates family values, if you seek them out”, said Steven Lambert, who said the Manhattan family would skip the bar scene and be home by noon. Absolutely nothing. But in the past years they seem to have enjoyed the spirit in rather inappropriate ways, which made the citizens of NY fear the season to be jolly.
