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SantaCon may not be as jolly as it sounds. In this story, we cover the puking, face-planting, bar-trashing kind of Santas. Then, you get Christmas criminals with prickly bits and a squirrel stabbin!
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For many people, the holidays are the most magical time of the year. It's something to look forward to. You may be spending time with your family, going to Christmas parties, visiting friends, eating good food, or shopping for the perfect gifts. It's supposed to be the season of giving, but holiday crime statistics show that retail theft and other crimes will increase by 30%. Thieves, also known as the people on the naughty list, will look for people that are carrying large shopping bags and they're also looking for that large stack of gifts that are sitting out in the open in your living room. Physical theft is on the rise during this time of year, but so is cyber fraud as more people do their shopping online.
There are many reasons why Christmas crime statistics are higher, but here are the top 3 on the list.
First, we're going to talk about SantaCon.
What is SantaCon? It's an annual pub crawl where people dress up in Santa Claus costumes or other Christmas characters and this happens in various cities all over the world. It started of as “joyful performance art” that originated in San Francisco, but it evolved into a bar crawl where you can pretty much expect drunken brawls, vandalism and public urination.
The following stories are from an article in New York Grub Street titled “Very Bad Santas: 12 SantaCon Horror Stories” by Sierra Tishgart. Grub Street asked bartenders, restaurant staff, and citizens to share their painful memories and they compiled them in this article. I'm reading the entire article verbatim.
The East Village resident who met a puking Santa on her stoop:Last year, I left my apartment in the mid-afternoon, during prime SantaCon time, and when I opened the door of my building, I was met by an individual wearing plaid boxers, suspenders, and a Santa hat (no shirt, questionable shoes), vomiting on my stoop. Once he had finished, I guess he decided he should really go for the gold star, so he then peed all over his neat pile of vomit, causing it to (somewhat) clean the offending area of my stairs. He finally realized I was there and went for a high-five.
The pizza-shop employee with a face-planting customer:It’s our busiest day of the year to sell pizza. But the Santas are drunk and they have no money. They often just stand there and don’t even order. No manners. It’s a mess. We had a girl fall asleep on her slice. She just face-planted on the pizza.
The bar owner who saw a midday knife fight:Brutal day. I don’t let them in. It’s blood money. I even saw a stabbing last year at two o’clock in the daytime.
The guy who learned that you do not attempt to hook up after SantaCon:I met a girl at a bar, and we went on a few dates and had a nice time. I was planning to meet her at night, after SantaCon, and my phone rang in the afternoon and she asked if she could hang out before I went out for dinner. She showed up in her Santa outfit, wasted and disheveled — obviously this wasn’t heading anywhere good.
Apparently, she lost the keys to her apartment and had no place to go. So rather than bring this girl dressed as Santa to dinner with my friends, I decided to just order food, stay in, and go to sleep on my couch. I woke up hours later to this girl crying in her Santa costume. I asked her what was wrong, and she said she had cramps. She asked that I go to CVS to buy her a hot-water bottle. In the morning, I told her that I was going out for breakfast with my friends, and that she could let herself out when she was ready. I came back to my apartment hours later, and she was still there and in her Santa outfit! I hate that stupid event.
The hostess who had to literally hoist drunk Santas out of her restaurant:The restaurant that I work at doesn’t participate in SantaCon, and when it does happen, we have a manager who’s close to the entrance door to stop Santas from coming in. Last year, some people who were inebriated slipped by, and they ran around the restaurant trying to find a bathroom. Our bathrooms are downstairs, which I guess is confusing for drunk people. We had to physically pick up some girls and put them outside. Regular patrons thanked us.
The SantaCon attendee who has a few regrets:This story starts in September of 2012, when I met a woman on a plane back to New York. After a few months of wooing and cajoling, she decided that she wished to visit me in New York. The fateful day that she picked to visit was SantaCon. I started the day off with whiskey pong. People playing whiskey pong at 11 a.m. have serious issues. She was arriving a little after 7 p.m. to stay the night, and I figured I’d sober up a bit before taking her out.
But I continued my drinking marathon into the late afternoon, and after consuming just short of twenty drinks at the pregame, I decided to follow my friends to the 13th Step. I didn’t have any pockets in my Buddy the Elf onesie, and after not being able to buy my way in with my watch, I apparently decided to wander around for a few hours to pass the time. I don’t know how I got home or why I woke up naked at 10 p.m., but the 30 missed calls from her were a wonderful cherry on top of my gut-wrenching hang-over. She had come to New York for the night to see me and left in tears the same evening.
The kicker here was the Buddy the Elf costume. It wasn’t in my apartment. After a bit of searching, I gave up, only to eventually stumble upon it in the lobby of my building. Why and when I decided to strip down to my underpants in the dead of December in the lobby of my apartment building still remains a mystery.
The bartender who learned that even SantaCon planners have reservations about the event:We don’t let the Santas into our bar. Last year, one of the SantaCon planners came in, and we said, “Please don’t bring your Santas here!” And he actually said, “I would never do that; I like this place too much.” We were thankful for that. Seeing Santas barfing on the street and wreaking havoc has led us to not want to be a part of it at all. And the fact that our bar is so small: If one of them comes, they’re all here. They travel in packs.”
The bartender that got stiffed by bar-trashing Santas:My bar opens at 8 a.m. every day, so we’re the bar that most of the Santas start at. We get them before they’re too drunk, but I’ve never seen so many people at the bar at 8 a.m. before … and I’ve never seen so many people act like animals. Whole pizzas on the floor. People sneaking in their own bottles of beer and liquor. Trash everywhere. It’s disgusting. I had to clean up an entire pizza that had spilled on the floor, which people had stepped all over. And they don’t tip very well. They order six drinks at a time and leave you one dollar.
The customer who stood up to a giant, drunk Santa (sort of):A random bridge-and-tunnel asshole pushed a girl walking out ofFinnerty’s. He was huge and I’m, well, not, so instead of fighting him and probably losing, I stuck my foot out as he walked by and tripped him into the bouncer, who promptly beat and tossed his ass.
The bar back whose smoke break was ruined by urine odor:I was already worn out halfway through my shift, thanks to an endless slew of drunken Santas demanding an endless slew of drinks, with a line out the door of more drunken Santas trying to get in. I stepped outside for a smoke break, but instead dashed back in thanks to the strong stench of urine that filled the air, making it nearly impossible to breathe.
The restaurant staffer who would like his buzzers back:Like any touristy restaurant, we use those little buzzer pagers to form a wait line. We never lose them. People keep track of them. But when SantaCon comes, we’ll lose ten over the course of five hours. People fall asleep on tables. Every once in a while, we’ll serve someone a nonalcoholic beer instead of a regular beer without telling them.
The woman who just doesn’t understand why these people drag Santa down:I arrived at Grand Central Station and was trying to disembark when I got caught in a crowd of rowdy Santas. I literally could not get off the platform, and then I had a hard time getting out of the station. I was in the middle of what felt like an angry mob of fake Santas that were singing and drinking — and I thought: One, are you allowed to drink in the middle of Grand Central? And two, why are they desecrating Santa, the most loved of all myths?
Bath salt decorator
Terry Trent was 44 years old and he was high on bath salts when he broke into a family's home, put up some Christmas decorations, hung a wreath on the garage door, and sat down to watch some TV. An 11 year old boy who lived in the house found the stranger and called his mother, Tamara Henderson and she was at a neighbor's house.
The boy calls up his mom and she said, “What do you mean a man is in our house? You don't know if he has a gun or if he has a knife?” Tamara called 911 and Trent was arrested without any issues. He was armed with a pocket knife. Tamara told the station that, “The candle was lit on the coffee table, the television was on and very loud. He had said to my son, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to scare you. I'll get my things and go.”
Santa groped an elf
A Massachusetts mall Santa Claus Herbert Jones was banned in 2013 after he allegedly groped an 18-year-old woman dressed as an elf. They were working at a photo booth when Santa allegedly “pinched her buttocks and made suggestive comments.”
Herbert said this was all a big misunderstanding and he pleaded not guilty to indecent assault and battery and was told to never go back to the Hanover Mall. He was also ordered to never dress up as Santa again. The woman recalled him saying “I wish you were a few years older and I was younger” as he groped her butt. Herbert said he never groped the elf and he was seated on his Santa throne and she walked by and brushed up against his hand and he quickly pulled his hand away so he didn't touch her. His remarks about her being older and him being younger were taken out of context, they weren't meant to be sexual. He just wished he could be young again so he could do his life differently.
Squirrel stabbin
In 2013, a 44-year-old North Charleston, South Carolina woman, Helen Williams, lost her shit on her husband when he dared to come home without any beer. Helen allegedly beat and stabbed him with a ceramic squirrel because the stores were closed on Christmas Eve, so she would have to wait for her beer and that's unacceptable. The victim was found on the floor covered in blood and Helen said he fell.
The Charleston County Sheriff's Office wanted to know why Helen was also covered in blood. Her husband said he didn't fall, he was attacked because he didn't bring any beer home. Helen was charged with domestic violence for stabbing her husband in the shoulder and chest with a ceramic squirrel.
Barbie heart attack
In 2014, Tarus Scott and Gerard Dupree decided to put a little plan into action so they could steal a motorized Barbie car and a vacation house which cost about $369 at the time. They went into a Walmart and Gerard was going to fake a heart attack to distract security, while Tarus stole the items. After Gerard faked the heart attack, he casually got up and left the store and he was seen getting into a vehicle with Tarus and the surveillance camera caught them driving off. Between the two of them, they had over 30 previous arrests and they were both charged with grand theft.
Rudolph sat on my house
On December 12, 2014, a 200-pound wooden Rudolph statue was stolen. The iconic statue had been a fixture in the Rolling Hills Estates community in Los Angeles County for 50 years. Korry Taylor was the neighborhood's Homeowner's Association President and she had been taking care of the statue for years. She said, “He's been up there for literally 50 years and he's one-of-a-kind. He's handmade. Hand-painted. And the thought that someone would take him, it's just heartbreaking.”
Missing posters were distributed and they looked everywhere for this 200 pound reindeer. Sheriff's deputies followed up on a tip from a KTLA viewer and a week after it was stolen, they found the statue on the roof of a mobile home. The man who lived in the mobile home was arrested and it was discovered that he was a gardener who worked in the neighborhood where the Rudolph was taken from. The man said he didn't steal the reindeer, he just found it on his roof.
Decoration chuckles
In December 2014, police arrested a couple in Colorado Springs for stealing $2000 worth of their neighbor's Christmas decorations. Carly said about her husband that, “Every morning he'd go out for a walk, at like 2 or 3, and then there was just more stuff in the yard.” According to the affidavit, Jeremy Lewallen chuckled when he was confronted with the stolen decorations. He said he didn't care about the people he stole from. The couple was also jailed in November for stealing Halloween decorations, so Carly was worried about reporting the Christmas ones because she didn't want to get in trouble again.
Carly told KKTV, “I didn't know if I called if I was going to get in trouble myself or not, you know, because it was in my yard.” The two of them were facing felony theft counts, but the decorations were all returned.
Prickly bits
On December 13rd, 2014, UK's Falmouth and Helston Police posted the following on their Facebook page “Last night a Christmas tree was stolen from the rear garden of a property on Kelley Road, Falmouth. It is described as around 6 ft tall with lots of Green branches and prickly bits.”
Comments from Facebook post:
-It left a hole in the ground... the police are looking into it!
-Green branches with prickly bits.... hmm think I've seen one or two like that around!
-Whoops I bought a tree with that descriptions from the back of a van today
-My thoughts and prayers are with the family at this difficult time
-Just follow the fallen needles
-You're barking up the wrong tree lads
-The guy you're looking for is fat about 5ft 6, white beard and wearing a red outfit and goes by the name of clause
-It may be disguised with tinsel and shiny balls
-Is this a joke? You've described a Christmas tree
Marijuana Christmas
A man was held at Nashville International Airport in Tennessee because Officers and a K-9 could smelled marijuana coming from 3 bags that belonged to 57-year-old Somphone (som-pone) Temmaraj. He cooperated with officials and allowed them to check his bags. He handed them the key and they saw wrapped Christmas gifts in each bag. The items were filled with vacuum-sealed bags of marijuana weighing 84 pounds. Officials noticed that there weren't any clothes or personal items in the bags, which is odd for someone who is traveling. The Christmas gifts were wrapped in white towels. The carry-on backpack had a stack of $20 bills and totaled $1,000 and there were two cell phones wrapped in towels. The man had a receipt showing that he deposited $2,592 in cash prior to his flight and he had two additional phonea and $1,600 with him. The article says that after they found 84 pounds of green leafy substance wrapped as Christmas gifts in the double vacuum-sealed bags, officials decided to ask him what he does for a living and he pointed at the marijuana and said, “this.”
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