The MTA is as soon as once more pooh-poohing on New York’s ho ho ho-ing.
SantaCon is coming to city this weekend — and the transit authority is trying to manage the chaos by banning alcohol consumption on Metro-North Railroad and Lengthy Island Rail Highway trains for 32 hours.
“Our high precedence is making certain that Metro-North and Lengthy Island Rail Highway riders can rejoice safely,” MTA Police Chief John Mueller stated in an announcement Tuesday.
“The vacation season is an excellent time of 12 months, and we would like everybody to get to their vacation spot easily and on time whereas having fun with the festivities.”
The ban will begin at 4 a.m. Saturday — offering a six-hour cushion earlier than the frenzied festivities are scheduled to start — and can final via midday Sunday.
The prohibition additionally extends to all station platforms and prepare vehicles.
The MTA can be beefing up its police presence for the boozy crawl, notably at Penn Station, Grand Central Madison, and Grand Central Terminal.
Naughty Santas caught sneaking in sips can be slapped with summonses and may very well be faraway from the prepare, the MTA warned.
That is the twelfth 12 months the MTA has carried out the ingesting prohibition on SantaCon weekend, which usually attracts 30,000 partiers to the Massive Apple from all through New York and surrounding states.
The occasion payments itself as “a charitable, non-political, nonsensical Santa Claus conference that occurs every year to unfold absurdist pleasure” — however is way more well-known for sending a whole lot of blitzed Santas getting sick within the streets and igniting brawls between elves.
The Christmas-themed bar crawl, which began in 1998, was a charitable group in 2014 after the NYPD requested promoters to crack down on drunken combating.
However a report final 12 months discovered that lower than a fifth of the $1.4 million SantaCon raised between 2014 and 2022 was handed over to registered charities.
Based on SantaCon organizers, this 12 months’s $15 tickets will go straight towards a plethora of charities, together with Metropolis Harvest, Clowns With out Borders, the Burning Man Undertaking and extra.
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