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| Gravity mishap caught on tape | Screengrab via @the1stMikeC |
After years of withering criticism from neighbors and increasing scrutiny by the city, Wrigleyville’s annual Twelve Bars of Christmas s**tshow was significantly less s**tty, yet still a good show this year.
CWB Chicago estimates that “only” four TBOX participants wound up in jail this year. That’s down from six last year; seven in 2014; and eleven in 2013.
TBOX organizers began adding more private security, clean-up crews, private ambulances and portable toilets in 2013 after the bar crawl started sucking up police and fire department resources that were supposed to be protecting a broad swath of the city.
Chicago police tactical units from five outside districts patrolled Wrigleyville during Saturday’s event.
The king of Wrigleyville drunk fests, St. Patrick’s Saturday, is also seeing somewhat less s**t with a little more show.
The March mess saw 21 arrests in 2014; 17 in 2015; and only seven this year.
Even with fewer arrests at TBOX 2016, the local police and fire department communications managed to remain entertaining. Here are some highlights:
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| Rock & Roll Elf or bizarre Jewish street gang? You decide. | Screengrab via @the1stMikeC |
10:45AM — Witnesses report a “21- to 25-year-old woman vomiting as she’s walking out of Old Crow Smokehouse.” She’s taken to Advocate Illinois Masonic Medical Center and appeared to also be the victim of a battery, police said.
1:22AM — Moe’s Cantina needs an ambulance for a “downer.” The call is forwarded to TBOX’s private ambulance service.
2:46PM — “Male white in a black jacket is being beaten by a female white in a Christmas sweater.” Addison and Lakewood.
2:51PM — The fire department can’t find a reported female down at Clark and Sheffield. 19th district commander Marc Buslik reminds dispatchers that “the organizers of this caper have private ambulances so there may have been a transport.”
2:51PM — Confirmed. The drunk girl from Clark and Sheffield was swept away to hospital by the angels of Superior Ambulance Service.
3:38PM — Outside the Coffee and Tea Exchange, “a male white and a female white in matching red holiday sweaters” are beating each other up.
5:02PM — “A severely intoxicated male, white screaming for help on the street” at Southport and Waveland.
5:28PM — The man who was screaming for help has now crashed onto a store’s Christmas display, and he’s refusing to get up. He’s described as “the man with trees on his sweater who’s sitting on a Christmas display.” 3600 block of Southport.
5:46PM — Man walks into the 19th district police station at 850 W. Addison and reports that a “highly intoxicated female got into his vehicle and passed out. He doesn’t know the woman.” She’s hospitalized.
8:35PM — An intoxicated man calls police because Nisei Lounge’s doorman is “being mean” and won’t let him into the bar. The man promptly passes out on the sidewalk. Ambulance scoops him up for a sleigh ride to detox.
9:55PM — Intoxicated male white is battering pedestrians as they pass by Clark and Roscoe. He’s wearing “a blue stocking cap, blue sweater, red snow pants, and no shoes.”
12:26AM — “Send me an ambulance. I gotta a drunk who slipped on the ice and cracked his skull” outside Slugger’s World Famous Sports Bar.
12:50AM — In the 1400 block of West Cornelia, an unknown male white is sleeping in the first-floor stairwell. The caller does not remember what the man is wearing, but he has antlers.
