“We’re behaving well. It shouldn’t be a problem until something goes wrong”, he said at about 10:45 a.m.
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Last year, some city officials urged bar and restaurant owners to boycott the event for fear of rowdiness, vomiting and public urination, which has marred some of the events in the past.
Mary Altaffer/AP In this December 11, 2010, file photo, John Paul, center, dressed as an Elf and Michael Smallwood, in a Santa Claus outfit, ride the E train in NY. But the backlash seems to have eased as organizers have labored to re-model the occasion as a very good-spirited fundraiser for charity.
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.
The annual pub crawl kicks off Saturday morning at McCarren Park in Williamsburg, Brooklyn.
“Try spending an afternoon in some of our neighborhoods where the event is occurring, and you’ll find incidents of disruptive and boorish behavior”, says state Sen.
“I’m not anxious about the event”, he said. “The most I saw were lots of lap dances”. New York’s is generally the biggest, drawing thousands of people.
The group’s lawyer, Norman Siegel, says “there’s a transition to a more positive SantaCon”.
The occasion originated in San Francisco greater than 20 years in the past as a boozy, tongue-in-cheek protest towards the commercialization of Christmas. “It’s half satire and has an edge”. “An organization that brings over 25,000 people to our neighborhoods should show us respect by sharing its routes with community boards and local elected officials and working together with us well in advance to determine how we can mitigate the negative impacts of this bar crawl on our local communities and small retail businesses, whose annual sales depend heavily on this time of year”. This yr the map of occasions was launched earlier this week. A spokesman for the New York Police Department said there were no reported arrests Saturday evening and organizers say there were no arrests or summonses a year ago.
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“I’m not anxious about the event”, said Greg Jacobson, general manager at Verboten, another hosting bar.
