Metro

Closing time for these ‘crawlers’

It soon may be illegal to drink and crawl.

A Manhattan community board is mulling a ban on pub crawls, those nights of revelry in which organized groups stumble from bar to bar and imbibe at great discounts.

The Internet and social networking have tripled the size of many of the pub crawls, said Toni Carlina, district manager of CB6, which covers 14th to 59th streets between the East River and Lexington Avenue.

“Nobody wants to prevent people from having a good time, but they must be considerate of the neighborhood,” she said.

Following a St. Patrick’s Day pub crawl, which enticed thousands of drunken, sometimes underage partygoers to the neighborhood for $1 drafts, board members were prompted to move ahead with a possible ban, Carlina said.

A public hearing will be held Thursday.

According to Town & Village, a newspaper covering the community, the neighbors complained of rowdy revelers vomiting in the streets.

Eddie Miller, one of the founders of pubcrawls.com, which sold tickets to the St. Patrick’s Day event, said they accounted for only 1,000 drinkers, a tiny percentage of the festivities that day.

“I don’t believe the vomit in the streets is caused by pub-crawl clients,” he told The Post.

“St. Patrick’s Day is a huge holiday in New York City, and my small pub crawl only represents a fraction of the people who celebrate it,” he said.

Lauren Ferrante, 23, a bartender at Sidebar, said the ban won’t work.

“People are just going to make their own pub crawl, even if it’s not sponsored,” she said. “It’s not going to stop someone sending out an invitation to 2,000 people on Facebook, and I’m sure bars will throw out some drink specials.”

No specific resolutions have been drafted by the board yet, but it’s unclear what city agencies would be responsible.

Both the departments of Health and Consumer Affairs said such a ban would not be in their purview.

The State Liquor Authority said it would not enforce bans on the events, in which bars combine forces for advertising and drink specials.

However, there are explicit rules about just how much drinks can be discounted, SLA spokesman Bill Crowley said.

Manhattan’s Community Board 6 is fed up with pub crawls and is attempting to ban them.

* The “crawl” area stretches from 14th to 59th streets, from the East River to Lexington Avenue.

* Locals complained that on St. Patrick’s Day, the drunken masses made a racket and left vomit all over the streets.

* The rowdy throngs packed bars and restaurants to the point where regulars couldn’t get in.

* The board will debate the issue, and hear from the public next Thursday.

jeremy.olshan@nypost.com