Popular Bar Crawl Returns With a Vengeance After COVID Hiatus

You better watch out, you better not cry! The popular (and often controversial) SantaCon is set to return this year after being cancelled in 2020 due to COVID-19. Get ready, as a floodgate of inebriated Saint Nicks will converge on the city December 11, according to the New York Post. All you'll need is a $13 donation to get your Santa Badge and get into the designated SantaCon bars and venues. Many other details will be released as the event draws closer.

Hoping to avoid a day full of drunken fights and other behaviours that will land you on the naughty list, the organizers have posted some rules and public service announcements. You'll also have to have proof of vaccination to get into any bars that may be hosting the event. Can't have Santa on a ventilator this year. Many of these rules will probably be ignored anyway, but don't say they didn't try.

While the event has its supporters, it has also drawn the ire of many who have witnessed firsthand the drunken free-for-all the bar crawl turns into every year. Any given year, you're bound to find video after video of fighting, people throwing up in the streets, Santas harassing innocent bystanders, and plenty of Kris Kringles passed out face first in their own jolly pile of barf. In 2019, a man came all the way from West Virginia to the event only to urinate on himself and then later pass out at a McDonald's in Manhattan.

And with an entire year off to stew on it, many of these would-be Santas are probably going to be looking to stir up something December 11. if this isn't your sort of thing, then you might want to avoid visiting the City that day. You've been warned.