Town asks no Oct. 31 game

While there will be scantily-clad nurses vampires and superheroes on Franklin Street for Halloween this year out-of-town football fans will be few in number.

Due to cooperative efforts by the Chapel Hill Police Department and the Department of Athletics UNC will not host a home football game on Saturday" Oct. 31.

The police department held a series of meetings over the last few months as part of a multiyear campaign to reduce the Halloween crowd size in Chapel Hill.

Athletic department officials attended at least one of these meetings where police requested that a game not be scheduled to cut down on the number of people in town.

""They wanted us to do anything we could do to avoid having a home game on Saturday this year"" said Rick Steinbacher, an associate athletic director in charge of marketing and promotions.

After talking with the police department, Athletic Director Dick Baddour and Senior Associate Athletic Director Larry Gallo made a request to the Atlantic Coast Conference that UNC not host a home game on Oct. 31. The request was honored.

The ACC allows all of its 12 schools to make one scheduling request per year.

In 2008, around 35,000 people flooded Franklin Street to celebrate Halloween. Kenan Stadium seats 60,000 people.

Chapel Hill Police Chief Brian Curran said the Franklin Street crowd on Halloween would be enough to handle.

Halloween's on a Saturday and I didn't want to have a 60"000-plus football crowd getting ready to join all the people that want to rush Franklin Street" Curran said.

Curran said this was the only time the police department has made such a request, but he said he was grateful that University administrators had been so accommodating.

This past year, Chapel Hill police took a number of measures to reduce the crowd size on Franklin Street, such as a midnight curfew, reduced parking and a $5 minimum bar fee.

The changes were prompted by Chapel Hill Mayor Kevin Foy's initiative to keep the Franklin Street party a local event.

As a result of the effort, crowd sizes decreased from 80,000 people in 2007 to 35,000 last October.



Contact the University Editor at udesk@unc.edu.