With early Franklin Street closing, UNC to host Halloween events

The clock will strike, but this time, not at midnight. This year on Halloween, Franklin Street will be closing at 10:30 p.m.

In 2014, Franklin Street was opened to traffic at 11 p.m. on Halloween, instead of midnight like had been done in previous years. Even though Franklin Street will be opening back up early, some UNC organizations are offering other options for Halloween events.

The Residence Hall Association will be putting on its first ever #Heeloween event on Sunday, October 30 from 9:00 p.m. to midnight in Woollen Gym. It will feature costume contests, a haunted hallway, a carnival and a DJ.

“We deliberately put it on Sunday instead of Monday night because we have a feeling, given the campus climate, a lot of people might be doing most of their Halloween festivities over the weekend,” said Taylor Bates, RHA president.

RHA is also having a table at SafeTober Fest on Oct. 24 at Granville Towers and on the 27 at SASB Plaza. The organization will focus on helping students to identify signs of alcohol poisoning and overdose as well as relationship violence and domestic abuse.

“At SafeTober Fest, there will be plenty of candy, snacks and free t-shirts, which is a lot of fun,” Bates said. “We are kind of taking the same approach with our #Heeloween event, we are heavily marketing it through the RAs, through the buildings where students live, we have food and free swag items to hopefully reach those students who want to benefit from this program.”

Even though the Halloween celebration will end earlier than normal, first-year student Nolan Butler said he doesn’t feel affected by the change.

“I’d say my friends and I weren’t really going to go out that late anyways so the time doesn’t impact our plans,” he said.

Bates said RHA isn’t directly affected by the new Franklin Street closing time, but that some RAs and community governors may choose to have food in the lobby for Halloween party-goers.

“In RHA, we are really more concerned with that weekend leading up to Halloween because just knowing students, we feel that that’s going to be their prime going out time and that’s kind of when we’re on guard to provide some alternative activities and hopefully help them make good decisions,” Bates said.

Travis Broadhurst, Carolina Union Activities Board vice president of programming, said CUAB was not affected by the earlier Franklin Street festivities because their events are usually planned a month to two months in advance in order to give students time to plan out their schedules.

CUAB will be hosting a movie night, showing “Don’t Breathe” in the Union auditorium on October 28 and 29.

“We encourage students to come to everything we have ahead of time, especially this year since Halloween is on a Monday, a lot of parties and a lot of the underage drinking are shifting a lot toward the weekend and so our movies especially are good ways for students to combat that and combat that underage drinking,” Broadhurst said.

@danielleeeb5

university@dailytarheel.com