14 DAY TRIAL // This year's gathering at SantaCon was spiced up with six Santas and one Elf knocking the Christmas out of each other in the middle of the street. One amused viewer caught the whole event on tape and shared it on YouTube for everyone to see the violent Nicks and the misbehaved elf.
SantaCon has now become a tradition of pub-crawling, drinking, trashing and disrupting the peace in New York's neighborhoods. The loud, hours-long bar-crawling session has left New Yorkers with a rather bad taste, after seeing all those costumed individuals swearing, drinking, vomiting, urinating in public, fighting and making fools out of themselves.
The celebration used to be about festive clothing and holiday spirit, but this year’s gathering saw more than 30,000 people with a rather high level of booziness. “It's become this massive booze fest, with people drinking as much as they can and basically running amok without any rules,” one New Yorker bothered by SantaCon told the Los Angeles Times.
This year's moment of glory for the celebration was a festive fight with some special, but not-so-jolly, Santas and one of their helpers, as if trashing the streets in a pub-crawling alcohol spree wasn't enough. The out-of-control party-people got in an argument and then in a violent fight at the corner of the street for everyone to see, smashing their heads on taxis and putting each other on the ground.
Even if the event's organizers and New York's Police Department worked together to control the crowds and avoid any major conflicts, it still wasn't enough. Bad Santas are kind of hard to control when they are already under the influence.
New York residents have bashed the festive gathering and some even hanged signs saying “Santa Con Free Zone. Alcohol-Soaked Father Christmas Themes Flash Mod Not Welcome Here,” notes Daily Mail. Also, officers have instructed bar owners to avoid serving alcohol to people dressed like Saint Nicks, elves, gingerbread houses, reindeer or anything else festive-like.
Luckily, no arrests have been made at this year's SantaCon and even the jolly fighting gang from the street finally broke it off. Still, New York's residents don't really agree with the idea of thousands of fake and drunk Saint Nicks wandering around on the streets like that.