On Halloween night, throngs of trick-or-treaters descended on Court Street in Lewisburg, delighting residents as kids raced from house to house collecting candy and showing off their costumes.
“Ooh,” said one homeowner to a child dressed as a clown with sharp, bloody teeth, “you’re really scary!”
Trick-or-treating on Court and Church streets in downtown Lewisburg has become a tradition for many Greenbrier County families, and most of the Court and Church Street residents have embraced their role as candy-givers and, anymore, block party hosts.
Many of those residents use the crowds as an opportunity to throw a shindig, so it’s not unusual to see several adults, dressed as witches and vampires, on a particular porch, oohing and aahing over their guests’ costumes as they enjoy a cocktail. One Court Street homeowner has begun a tradition of decorating the yard with colored lights and a smoke machine, as young adults drink beer and dance in the grass to Alice Cooper songs and the “Monster Mash.”
All in all, the scene becomes one of a giant party that stretches from the Old Stone Cemetery to Old Powell Road. In recent years, the city has added increased police patrols and caution signage to alert motorists that children will be, well, everywhere.
Earlier this month, a group of those residents approached Lewisburg City Council requesting that Court and Church streets be closed from 6-8 p.m. on Halloween to keep cars off the street while the kids trick or treated. The city declined to close the streets, but they did increase police presence to include two foot patrolmen and a dedicated police car which circled the block throughout the festivities. They also sent a press release to local newspapers and television stations urging drivers to be extra cautious.
Thanks to the media outreach, the temporary signage urging drivers to use “extreme caution,” and the unseasonably warm weather, there were hardly any cars on the street during trick or treating on Court Street and Church Street this year. On one portion of Court Street, there were even fewer kids on the street thanks to new sidewalks.
In an effort to track exactly how many kids are on the streets, some residents used counters to register each trick-or-treater who came to their door. According to resident Cindy Lavender-Bowe, who has spearheaded many efforts to make the area more safe during trick-or-treating, one residence on Court Street counted 675 kids, another had 574 and a third counted 554, averaging 601 kids in two hours.
The Church Street numbers were a bit lower: one house counted 538 and another counted 450 for an average of 494.
Lavender-Bowe emphasized that those numbers only reflect actual trick-or-treaters, not their parents and older siblings who accompany them.
She said she hopes to present those numbers to the city and make a formal request to close the street next year, or, she said, at the least, continue with the signage, publicity and police patrols. She said she’d also like to see temporary lighting, especially by the Old Powell Road intersection, where it gets very dark.
Lavender-Bowe said she loves taking part in “hosting” Lewisburg’s largest Halloween outing. In fact, she said, it’s one of the reasons she and her family moved to the neighborhood, noting that she’d brought her son to trick or treat in that neighborhood before they moved there.
“It’s a piece of Americana that just doesn’t exist anymore,” she said. “But, I do get nervous when the kids just bolt across the street.”
As for the expense, Lavender-Bowe confirmed that buying enough candy is pretty expensive. She said she and her neighbors spend between $150 and $200 per household on candy every year. She worries that some of the older residents on fixed incomes who live on Court and Church Street can’t afford the expense, and suggests that over time, many households have opted to turn off their porch lights and opt out of the whole thing because they just can’t afford to give candy to so many kids.
But, she said, as long as she can afford to be part of it, she will.
“We love it,” she said.
