Arroyo Grande ditched Halloween in the Village — but these families are fighting back
For at least the past 18 years, South County children have gathered along a four-block stretch of Branch Street every Halloween to partake in a beloved small-town tradition: trick-or-treating in the Village.
This year, however, Arroyo Grande’s annual Halloween in the Village event is in jeopardy.
The city announced in a news release Wednesday that the event would not be occurring in 2019 because of a “lack of an event sponsor.”
The nonprofit Village Improvement Association has previously sponsored Halloween in the Village, but this year notified the city that it did not intend to do so because of cost concerns and potential parking impacts.
On Tuesday night, the Arroyo Grande City Council debated whether the event should be taken over by the city, but council members ultimately decided against that. (The city will still host its annual Halloween Carnival and Haunted Maze at Elm Street Park on Oct. 26 from 4:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m.)
A small-town holiday tradition
The news came as a shock on Wednesday to many longtime Arroyo Grande residents and business owners, who were surprised to find that the activity had been canceled with what they felt was no notice.
“How could you take away such a fun event that’s been around for 20-plus years with no warning,” Hello Village owner Krista Bandy told The Tribune on Friday. “No, ‘Hey someone needs to step up’ before it came to the council meeting. If I had known this was happening, I would have done everything before it became chaos.”
The exact start date for Halloween in the Village seems to be a little unclear. Bandy noted that though the city says the annual event has been held for 18 years, she has friends who trick-or-treated in the area much further back than that.
The first mention of an official trick-or-treating event in the Village in Tribune archives is in 2002.
Whenever its start, the event has since ballooned to include full road closures of West and East Branch Street between Traffic Way and Mason Street. An estimated 2,500 children have participated in the event in the last few years, according to the city staff report.
Each year, Village businesses stock their shops with candy for the horde of young trick-or-treaters that flock to the street with their families between 3 and 5 p.m.
“For a lot of families, Halloween in the Village is their Halloween,” former Arroyo Grande resident Ashley Daoust told The Tribune. “It’s their only trick-or-treating time. So for it to be put on the table that it may not happen anymore can be quite disappointing.”
Daoust, whose family owns Lightning Joe’s Guitar Heaven in the Village, noted that she likes the event because it is a “great, middle-of-the-day safe option for families to go trick-or-treating.”
“For us, because we work in the Village, we get to let our kids grow up seeing the festivities every year and participate, but then we still get to have our time as a family later in other neighborhoods,” she said. “Who doesn’t love double the loot?”
Nipomo resident Jessica Jackson said she grew up going to Halloween in the Village, and now shares the experience with her sons.
“To me, this is a family tradition,” she said. “Nothing can replace being with family, seeing your friends with kids dressed up with smiles on their faces and overloaded with the best candy. This day is magical here in the Village.”
Families for Halloween in the Arroyo Grande Village
In response, a coalition of families and businesses in the Village have joined forces to try to get the event going again.
Cafe Andreini manager and Arroyo Grande resident Joslynn Flowers said since Wednesday’s announcement, the group has filed for a permit to host an event and gotten insurance to cover it. They plan to present their proposal to the City Council at its next meeting Oct. 8.
They have also created a Facebook group, Families for Halloween in the Arroyo Grande Village, to spread information about the push for a new event. Since it was created Thursday, the group has already amassed more than 200 members.
“I think it brings our community together,” Flowers said of the Halloween in the Village event. “It’s reminiscent of the ‘good ole days.’ You see the people you went to school with walking around with their families, and not just their kids but their parents, grandparents. It keeps our small-town feeling alive.”
The group is also gathering candy donations to help provide candy for Village businesses to pass out to trick-or-treaters, so they don’t have any cost burdens, according to Flowers.
South County community comes together
On Thursday, the city sent out a follow-up news release saying it was aware of “multiple merchants in the Village who have expressed interest in organizing, sponsoring, and being the applicant to host the annual ‘Halloween in the Village’ event.”
“At this time staff is working with these interested parties to understand the sentiment of the Village merchants and believe it is very likely that an official application will be submitted for consideration by the City Council at their meeting of Oct. 8, 2019,” read the release. “The city always encourages the community to voice their thoughts and are encouraged to comment and attend the meeting, which will begin at 6 p.m.”
Members of the Facebook group on Friday lauded the way the community has come together to potentially protect the event from an early grave.
“I couldn’t imagine this being taken away from our kids just because of money,” Jackson, a member of the Facebook group, told The Tribune. “This community is so close ... so I also had faith that we would come together to make this possible again for our kids. I knew there would be a way.”
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