Monday, September 22, 2008
Chapel Hill wants to make Halloween less scary
How do you keep a street party of 80,000 people from getting out of hand?
That's the question the Chapel Hill Town Council will discuss tonight. The police chief and parks and recreation director will present a report on ways to make the state's most famous annual Halloween party safer and less draining on the town's resources. That report will not be made available until the meeting, so no word yet on how they plan to reduce the number of drunken idiots driving to Franklin Street to pick a fight. Comments to The Chapel Hill Herald (reg. required) suggest the focus will be on catering to UNC students -- who don't need all those shuttle buses. Update: The report is now available here.
Last year, 13 people were arrested and eight were taken to the hospital even as 400 law officers were on hand keep the peace. Cost to the town: more than $220,000. Keep in mind, Chapel Hill's population is just over 51,000. Franklin Street's business owners are none too happy with the "sinister" turn the party has taken, either. In a chamber of commerce survey, 64 percent of downtown businesses reported property damage.
So if Chapel Hill regards non-residents as party-crashers, where will costumed revelers go?
I hear Sir Walter likes a good street party.
Update 9/23: See Lisa Sorg's coverage of the council discussion.
Comments (3)
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Mayor Foy needs to suspend the Constitution and declare war on all goblins. The city needs to take over Lowe's and Home Depot, confiscating lumber -- we need stakes to deal with the vampire issue. All Halloween souls found taking on the visage of members of the failed Bush administration should be taken directly to the court house for mass impeachment proceedings. (Note: bring more lumber from hardware stores to cover "burning at the stake" procedures.) Surveillance of all Chapel Hill grocery stores should begin immediately. Anyone purchasing a pumpkin should be put on the city's list for un-American activities. Sale of candles suspended within city-limits. Any lawbreakers dressed up as to impersonate Bozo the Clown should not be approached, or mistaken for city officials. Boo!
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Thanks for your comment, Ed. I got the population number from the U.S. Census and the Town of Chapel Hill web site, but didn't realize it did not include Durham County's Chapel Hillians. Have you tried to get the town's vital stats amended? I was unaware of the state of emergency proposal. I'd be curious to know what downtown merchants think of that. We'll keep an eye on it.
"Keep in mind, Chapel Hill’s population is just over 51,000." Personally, I keep in mind that Chapel Hill's population is about 54,000, so I' m included, along with all my Durham County neighbors. I'm looking forward to seeing your next post on this, and hope you will discuss one of the most interesting issues to me, whether Kevin Foy can declare a state of emergency and close all establishments selling alcohol for the period of the Halloween event. Apparently, he doesn't have to ask the rest of us. At last count (about 3 years ago) the Town had some 200 locations with licenses to sell alcohol, some of which were actually not in downtown. So that's a lot of places going dry. I'm trying to keep an open mind on the question, assuming I still have something to say on it. Mark K's idea of a closing time earlier than 2 AM has a lot of merit. Ed Harrison, Council Member
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