Homegrown Halloween shuts Blue Devils out for third year

For the third year in a row, Duke students will not be able to attend the traditional Halloween festivities on Franklin Street in Chapel Hill.

“Homegrown Halloween” is the initiative started by the town of Chapel Hill and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill to keep the Oct. 31 event’s small-town, community feel. According to the Homegrown Halloween website, crowds on Franklin Street were becoming unmanageable, with an attendance of over 80,000 in 2007.

Statistics from the website show that attendance dramatically dropped to approximately 35,000 in 2008—the year the restrictive policies were established—but rose to about 50,000 last Halloween.

In a letter addressed to the Duke community, UNC Student Body President Hogan Medlin encouraged visits from Duke students to Chapel Hill every weekend except that of Halloween, citing the safety of UNC students as the key motivation behind these restrictions.

“Knowing the capacity of our town and the limited resources at our disposal, I am writing to ask that we all respect Chapel Hill’s ‘Homegrown Halloween’ policies,” he wrote.

Public safety concerns, according to the website, include personal and property crime, crowd panic, large-scale civil disorders and gang-related violence. The website also specifically mentions the issue of alcohol poisoning during the events.

While attendance numbers decreased as a result of the Homegrown Halloween policies, the number of emergency calls for alcohol related issues remained the same—31— from 2007 to 2008. The number did, however, drop to 22 calls in 2009.

“‘Homegrown Halloween’ is Chapel Hill’s way of keeping the celebrations on Franklin Street dedicated for those who reside in Chapel Hill,” Medlin wrote. “Since 2008, [Duke’s] campus has been so helpful in our mission to minimize the number of outside visitors to Franklin Street on Halloween night. As the Student Body President, I ask that you continue this tradition once again.”