Hoboken Mayor Ravi Bhalla and Police Chief Kenneth Ferrante are reaffirming that Santacon, an annual holiday-themed bar crawl, won’t occur this year due to safety precautions and regulations related COVID-19.
By John Heinis/Hudson County View
“Our sole goal as Mayor and Police Chief is to keep Hoboken residents safe, and an unsanctioned, crowded bar crawl would have presented substantial challenges related to the pandemic,” Bhalla and Ferrante said in a joint statement.
“We are glad to share that Santacon has officially been canceled by the event organizers, which will help protect Hoboken residents from a potential super-spreader type event. Thank you to the many bars and restaurants who from the very beginning, refused to participate in Santacon, as these events continue to lose steam.”
The official Hoboken Santacon Facebook group previously announced they would not be running the event this year, though a separate, unidentified promoter had been advertising the purchase of tickets for December 19th.
Last year’s Santacon event yielded 521 calls for service and eight arrests, compared to 429 calls for service and 14 arrests in 2018.
The most recent Hoboken bar crawl in March, Leprecon, led to only 377 calls for service and six arrests.
Leave it to Ravi & team to take a victory lap on ‘cancelling’ an event that was never going to happen. I expect nothing less.