Chapel Hill Preparing for Homegrown Halloween

This year’s Homegrown Halloween will take place Tuesday night, which means Franklin Street will close off to cars so residents can take to the street in costumes.

Police Chief Chris Blue says parking will begin closing on Franklin Street earlier in the day, and the road will close at 8 p.m.

“And we will try very hard to start clearing it at 10:30,” Blue says. “That’s our plan.”

Blue says rules for the night are the same as in previous years.

“We don’t want items in the event that look like weapons; certainly, we don’t want weapons in the event,” Blue says. “There’s no alcohol in the closed event, bags or coolers or those kinds of things are prohibited really – even small bags we would ask that you try not to bring those in. We’re not going to ask you to dump your bag out, but we are going to check it and make sure it doesn’t have anything in there that could do harm to someone or could look like it could harm someone.”

Chief Blue spoke with WCHL’s Aaron Keck.

 

Blue says the festivities are best suited for people who can walk to the event as public parking near Franklin Street will be extremely limited and parking monitors will be stationed at nearby neighborhoods prohibiting parking.

According to Blue, large scale events of this manner are successful due to a collaboration of several law enforcement agencies in the area, public works, the fire department and Orange County Emergency Services.

Blue says he is pleased to see people’s cooperation with clearing the road and complying with law enforcement in the past, but that large crowds always bring concerns for unexpected events.

“This is true every year, but I think it’s on everyone’s mind even more in the wake of – I started to say national but obviously international events too, where crowds sometimes turn out to be targets for folks who want to harm people,” Blue says. “And that’s always on our mind; it’s on our mind even more this year given Las Vegas and given some of the attacks in Europe.”