NYC’s SantaCon aims to put an end to naughty-or-nice debate

The NYPD has a warning for the parade of drunken Santas descending on the Big Apple for the annual SantaCon pub crawl Saturday – you better be nice or you’ll wind up in the slammer.

Terance McNamara, 25, of Hoboken, New Jersey, was one of the early birds who gathered in the NY borough’s hip Williamsburg neighborhood dressed in a bright red Santa suit to start a day of bar-hopping.

Mary Altaffer/AP A bouncer stands next to a sign professing love for Santacon hanging in the window of the Continental bar in NY.

Santas came by the thousands, reindeer formed a kick line and oversized elves cavorted with saucy Mrs. Clauses as a police helicopter circled overhead.

Here are some tips on how to stay off the naughty list if you’re participating in SantaCon this year.

A group picture in the hipster-haven park, for which SantaCon obtained an assembly permit, symbolized the promised new mistletoe, er, leaf.

Before long, over a thousand costumed revelers were headed off to bar-hop and make merry through Brooklyn and Manhattan. Organizers say they raise tens of thousands of dollars for various causes. “We’re behaving well. It shouldn’t be a problem until something goes wrong”, he said at about 10:45 a.m. “We don’t pee in bushes or anything”.

Police logged a total of two arrests and 85 summonses for disorderly conduct, open alcohol containers and other offenses during SantaCon in 2012 and 2013, when some Santas got into street fights seen in online videos. They are suggesting that participants police themselves to cut down on the chances that New Yorkers who are not taking part get hurt.

“SantaCon is a cultural public commentary on the Christmas season, from a critique of consumerism to cultural and charitable giving”, said Siegel, who regards SantaCon as an exercise in free speech.

A dozen state and city politicians this week asked the State Liquor Authority to station investigators along the route.

“We are in trying times all throughout the world, and to have to expend more resources on an event like this, at times, it’s frustrating”, O’Neill said. “Its origins are based on festivity, regardless of religion or beliefs”.

Last year’s SantaCon in New York City coincided with street demonstrations against police violence sparked by killings of unarmed black men, complicating security considerations.