StateWays is the only magazine exclusively covering the control state system within the beverage alcohol industry, with annual updates from liquor control commissions and alcohol control boards and yearly fiscal reporting from control jurisdictions
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EDITOR'S NOTE StateWays Santacon Is Coming To Town I know the holidays are over and you're all taking a deep breath, reevaluating and restocking inventories, making plans for the upcoming first quarter of the year, and pondering other long- range decisions that control state agencies must do to keep their business fresh, relevant and appealing to an often fickle consumer. But let me just revisit the weeks before this past New Year's to make a point about the vibrancy and flexibility of the beverage alcohol industry. In fact, let me also revert back a few months before this past New Year's to Halloween. I live in New York City and I'm old enough to remember when Halloween was almost exclusively a day and night for kids to celebrate by "Trick or Treating." Though children still dominate the holiday, from what I see, Halloween has now become one of the biggest partying nights of the year, with the attendant spike in beverage alcohol sales. You can't avoid the hordes of twenty- and thirty-somethings, men and women, roaming the streets in costumes, searching out bars and parties. This is all in good fun, and it's a welcome boost to the beverage alcohol business. Now, there's a rather quirky "holiday" that seems to have emerged, more an event day, which has evidently been around for a few years. It's called Santacon, and I was completely unaware of it (probably revealing how out-of-touch and unhip I've become) until this past year, when on Saturday, December 10, those same hordes of twenty- and thirty-somethings seemed to be everywhere, in Santa suits, Santa hats, reindeer antlers, elf ears, you name it. Evidently, there were tens of thousand of Santacon participants in New York City, maybe more, according to the few news reports that mentioned it. And evidently, there were Santacons happening in cities all across the U.S.; indeed, even in places like London, England. As other things youth-oriented these days, it seems to have originated in social media over the Internet, and it is a call for people to devote the day to Santa. The Santacon web site declares: "Santacon is a non-denominational, non-commercial, non-political and non-sensical Santa Claus convention that occurs once a year for absolutely no reason." There are places to meet – huge groups of Santas, elves and reindeer were noted in Central Park and Grand Central Station, for example. But then the celebrants spread out and joined thousands of others throughout the city doing what twenty- and thirty-somethings do best – partying, which is to say spending money on beverage alcohol, either on-premise or off-premise. And this is where an interesting charitable element enters, for the Santacon participants are not only asked to dress appropriately, but are also asked to bring "two items of non- perishable food" to donate to charity (dropped off at designated points). And they are also expected to spend their money at bars throughout the city that are Sanatacon participants, which then send donations to the charity Toys for Tots. I have a feeling that this Sanatacon phenomenon is going to continue to grow. Just Google it to see the amount of traffic devoted to Santacon 2012. In the end, it's good fun, it's good for charity, and it's good for the beverage alcohol business. Executive Vice President and Group Publisher Charles Forman Tel: 845-426-6072 Fax: 845-426-6423 email: cforman@m2media360.com Editor- in-Chief Richard Brandes Tel: 212-353-3832 rbrandes@m2media360.com Managing Editor Jeremy Nedelka email: jnedelka@m2media360.com Art Director Adam Lane Contributing Editor Cheryl Ursin Associate Publisher Anthony Bongiovanni Senior Regional Sales Manager Mark Marcon Senior Regional Sales Manager Debbie Rittenberg Senior Regional Sales Manager Jeanette Sims Vice President, Circulation and Collateral Services Joanne Juda-Prainito Research Director Eric Schmidt List Rental Manager Cheryl Naughton M2MEDIA360 President/CEO Marion Minor Vice President, Finance & Operations Gerald Winkel is published by The Beverage Information Group, a division of M2MEDIA360 Editorial and executive offices are at 17 High St., 2nd Fl., Norwalk, CT 06851 Telephone: (203) 855-8499 Fax: (203) 855-9446 e-mail: Richard Brandes, Editor-in-Chief 4 jnedelka@m2media360.com StateWays www.stateways.com January/February 2012 ® StateW ays