
{"id":7820,"date":"2009-10-30T11:29:13","date_gmt":"2009-10-30T19:29:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.carrborocitizen.com\/main\/?p=7820"},"modified":"2009-10-30T11:29:13","modified_gmt":"2009-10-30T19:29:13","slug":"smaller-halloween-celebration-doesn%e2%80%99t-mean-less-fun","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/2009\/10\/30\/smaller-halloween-celebration-doesn%e2%80%99t-mean-less-fun\/","title":{"rendered":"Smaller Halloween celebration doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t mean less fun"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>By Beth Mechum, Staff Writer<\/p>\n<p>Hilarious costumes, unfortunate costumes, crowds of people, fake blood, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153too soon\u00e2\u20ac\u009d jokes (we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re looking at you, Michael Jacksons) and maybe even some candy. <\/p>\n<p>Halloween in Orange County just wouldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t feel right without these things.<br \/>\nIt\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s another Homegrown Halloween for Chapel Hill, where town leaders are hoping to decrease the numbers flocking to Franklin St. by even more than last year. <!--more--><\/p>\n<p>The number of people spending Halloween on Franklin Street last year went down from about 80,000 to about 35,000. The town\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s goal is to have about 10,000 to 15,000 people attend annually. <\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Halloween has always been a student-driven, local, fun event in Chapel Hill and we want to keep it that way. That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s why we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re taking steps again this year to increase safety and limit the size of the event on Franklin St,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Mayor Kevin Foy wrote in a public service announcement to the town.<\/p>\n<p>There\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a reason so many people want to come to Chapel Hill for Halloween: It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s fun. Over the years, students and residents alike have shown their creativity in costume creation, and this year looks to be no different.<\/p>\n<p>Sid\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Surplus in Carrboro is a major player in the costume-creation business.<br \/>\n\u00e2\u20ac\u0153We think of ourselves as world-famous Halloweenists here; it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s our favorite time of year,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d said Sid, who goes by just the one name.<\/p>\n<p>Sid said he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s had everyone from age 9 to 90 in the store looking for costumes. He was expecting a lot of Michael Jackson costumes this year (he has the jackets to supply it), but so far it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s been slow for the Thriller-themed bunch.<\/p>\n<p>Time after Time vintage shop manager Autumn Spencer said she hadn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t seen a lot of Michael Jackson costumes either, but that pirates will be in full force.<\/p>\n<p>Group costumes are popular this year, Sid said, with <i>Top Gun<i> characters, <i>Ghostbusters<i> and <i>Gilligan\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Island<i> all getting a lot of play.<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s one of the most self-indulgent holidays we have,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d he said. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Everybody is getting into it, everybody is finding something to stimulate the senses. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s going good.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n<p>Things to know:<br \/>\n\u00e2\u20ac\u00a2 there will be little to no parking available close to downtown;<br \/>\n\u00e2\u20ac\u00a2 vehicles parked on streets to be closed will be towed beginning at 6 p.m.;<br \/>\n\u00e2\u20ac\u00a2 prohibited items on Franklin St. include anything that can be used a weapon, glass bottles, paint, fireworks and explosives, flammable substances, animals and coolers;<br \/>\n\u00e2\u20ac\u00a2 there will be no bus shuttles and Safe Ride buses will operate from 11 p.m. to 2:30 a.m.<\/p>\n<p>If you have any questions, visit townofchapelhill.org\/Halloween, and for bus schedules go to townofchapelhill.org\/transit<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Beth Mechum, Staff Writer Hilarious costumes, unfortunate costumes, crowds of people, fake blood, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153too soon\u00e2\u20ac\u009d jokes (we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re looking at you, Michael Jacksons) and maybe even some candy. Halloween in Orange County just wouldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t feel right without these things. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s another Homegrown Halloween for Chapel Hill, where town leaders are hoping to decrease the numbers&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7820","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-community"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7820","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7820"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7820\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7821,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7820\/revisions\/7821"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7820"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7820"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7820"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}