Santacon is once again due to hit Portland in December. This year the Portland Police Bureau has decided to take a more proactive approach to enforcement against the drunken Santas.

“Hopefully we will be a little bit more on top of that this year,” says Lieutenant George Burke, sitting in at the downtown Public Safety Action Committee this morning. “That’s just understood that we are going to be putting an effort out to try to reduce the impact on the downtown community. “

It starts at noon, and “ends at detox,” joked one member of the committee.

“It does get a little bit rowdy,” Burke admitted.

Ho ho ho.

Matt Davis was news editor of the Mercury from 2009 to May 2010.

13 replies on “Cracking Down On Santacon”

  4. The Hillsboro Tourism Board lobbied the RoUnd Table of Hot Loving Ass Santas (R.U.T.H.L.A.S.) this year and RUTHLAS decided to bow to their promise of police in-action and free beer everywhere. And hookers, yeah hookers were totally in the contract.

    see you in the *burp* burbz, fucker SANTA!

  6. santacon is also at 6 pm, Friday the 12th at Berbatis pan, wear a santa hat and your best santa thong/speedo/bikini under your faux fur santa coat for the hot santa dance party!
    Stu says “see ya there”

  7. There will likely be a dozen or so Santas who don’t get the word, so they will be standing around Skidmore with a dozen or so cops who are expecting a massive group of Santa.

    I wonder who will be more confused?

  8. A-ha: It seems there’s some talk of moving to the suburbs this year…

    From:
    Date: November 19, 2008 11:07:29 AM PST
    To: lovenotes@portlandmercury.com
    Subject: Santacon 2008 – Theme: Explore the Unknown!

    Yes, we really actually are doing it! At long last, the poor wretches
    from the outer unexplored wastelands of Suburbia are going to get Xmas
    cheer! And Xmas presents! And Xmas hangovers! And Xmas
    we-had-to-call-a-divorce-
    lawyer-on-Monday!

    Why, oh mighty Flying Spaghetti Monster, WHY? Simple: We want to.

    There are many reasons to start (we never said that was where we
    planned to remain. Trust Santa) at the place we have scheduled,
    despite the fact that we may not speak the language, our shots may not
    be up to date and our passports will be likely eaten by goats when we
    try to return to civilization. What are these reasons, you may ask?

    1) Strip clubs. Have you been to one downtown lately? The only clubs
    remaining have a capacity under 75 people (which means 175 Santas,
    naturally, as Santa can be stacked on top of Santa). Even if we fill
    every single actual booze-serving strip club in downtown, we can only
    put at the most, 1/3 of Santa in them at once. Suburban strip clubs
    are huge! We can settle in and make our own nations in them. Hail,
    Boobtopia! Secession from the oppressive homeland!

    2) Cops. Ok, we have only four rules at Santacon. Just four. Four tiny
    rules, and last year a few hundred Santas broke them. The thing is,
    our following those four tiny rules is what kept the cops off our
    backs the last decade or so, and this year they are pissed. As in
    “riot patrol, taser-to-the-nutsack” pissed. On top of that, Zombiewalk
    just sort of pissed them off more a couple weeks ago and they have not
    had time to cool off yet. Would they arrest us for being rowdy this
    year? Unlikely. Would they shoot us in the kneecaps for giving them
    backtalk? Well, just a few of us. But the main issue is that they can
    simply stop us from having fun. Make us stand around sober a while.
    Ticket us for minor stuff like drinking in public or jaywalking. Make
    it, in other words, suck. The burbs are no where near as seasoned at
    buzzkilling huge groups as downtown PDX cops.

    3) Freakouts! Face it, Santa shocked the HELL out of people downtown
    in 1996. And really weirded them out in 2000. And sort of made them
    ponder in 2004. Now? Santa is as common a sight downtown as homeless
    guys peeing through open car windows. The burbs, however, are
    chock-full of people who only interact with the outside world through
    television and trolling for pedophiles on AOL. These fragile minds are
    ripe for the twisting. They may even bake us cookies if we sing
    carols!

    4) Cars! Burbs have less traffic, should we want to close off a side
    street and set up a Slip -N- Slide. Or walk down the street without
    being squished. Or park cars even (and as an added bonus, cars can be
    parked in the burbs for many days without being ticketed, towed or
    having homeless guys pee through the window. Downtown? Move it or lose
    it, and a tow can cost $400!) Carpool with a sober person, arrange for
    a pick up later, or carry a bus ticket stapled to your nipple. Santa
    promises that at the end of the night, wherever it winds up, you will
    be within the Tri-Met service area and at least two bus lines back
    toward civilization (or at least a transit center).

    5) Lastly, lots of people are worried about a lack of a bar twenty
    feet or less from the gathering point. Santa says don’t be such a
    pussy. Trust Santa.

    Old-school Santas may want to start at the small splinter groups (NONE
    WILL START DOWNTOWN, so please stop asking) in the SE area, far east
    area, north Portland area, Mostly South and slightly Westerly area and
    potentially one more. These splinters will be small (20-30 Santii) but
    will join back up with the horde in short order. You should know
    fellow Cacos in those areas so we won’t put up contact info. Call
    around until you hit paydirt. Each small starting splinter will have a
    phone number that we will give out a few days ahead of time to the
    local coordinator to pass out to you. That number will be a recording
    with the start point (and probably the second or even third stops) for
    that particular splinter. It will go live no earlier than 10am on the
    6th. It’s not us trying to be snobs, just trying to keep the main
    group’s numbers managable for the first chunk of the day. We promise
    the splinters will not miss out on much, and will make up for it
    through some strange planned activity. But when you meet back up with
    the horde, feel free to lie your ass off about all the amazing things
    you splinters got to do, like fly a fighter jet and see an identical
    twin sex show and learn to speak Gaelic.

    Everyone else should plan to meet up with the wranglers at the spot we
    have been announcing all over the web for a month. If you value
    massive over silly, start here. If you can’t find it yourself, tough.
    With the old-schoolers meeting up somewhat later, we should be able to
    handle the needs of 400-600 Santas for a few hours. No, you will not
    remain at the same place you will be starting. No, we will not rely on
    TriMet to move the entire horde en masse. No, we will not tell you the
    schedule so you can catch up later (get a Santa’s cell phone number or
    something). Yes, there will be the Three Bs (Booze, Boobs and B. . . B
    . . . um, Breindeer Games). Wear comfy shoes, bring SMALL BILLS to pay
    for drinks at bars (’cause credit cards piss everyone off, and $20s
    just mean an $15 tip if you buy a $5 drink with them) and have your
    emergency contact phone number written on your arm. Then follow the
    red blur in front of you.

    (a note on the comfy shoes: we still somehow managed to keep it
    Deathmarch-free this year, but there is still a bunch of walking over
    the 12 hours. No way around that. Since we won’t be downtown, the
    wussy “hop a bus home for an hour to change shoes” concept won’t work
    as well.)

    (ANOTHER note: if you bring a sleigh, plan to move it yourlself.
    People we can handle, shopping carts you are on your own. And if you
    try to push it the entire way you will last . . . about 20 minutes.
    Best to leave it home this year.)

  11. hehehehehehe!

    Santa knows of FIVE Santa events this year!

    Three are scams meant to throw the public off the scent, one is legit, and one is set up by people that got their feelings hurt by the legit one.

    One of the scams is really obvious, and the legit one looks like the least likely event. The other three are damn hard to crack unless you overheard some drunk Santas talking at Thatch this last Sunday.

    Let’s just say they want the internet trolls to go downtown (and are setting them up for epic failure), the whiners to go to the Bellmont one (total fake) and the people who got their feelings hurt are the ones setting up the NoPo (so, not fake, but not real).

    You can figure the rest out on your own.

  12. Downtown Sunday agenda…

    There will be Santas downtown. Apparently, the plan is to meet at Skidmore Fountain at noon- granted, it’s under construction, so look for the block of Santas nearby. The pub crawl will head towards Pioneer Square, more or less, with a special surprise at 5pm at the Church of Scientology (709 SW Salmon)

    If you can’t make it to the start, show up at Kelly’s Olympian 4ish, get a few in you, and hit the “Church”

Comments are closed.