Every year the Elmwood Avenue Halloween event grows bigger and stronger. I remember when Nightmare on Elmwood was still just a dream… a dream that some people didn’t think was going to work. “Kids don’t want to ‘trick or treat’ at stores,” they would say. But the event moved forward, and after just a few years it has become a major draw for the Elmwood Village.
Each year, the Saturday closest to Halloween, hundreds and hundreds of families hit the avenue in search of candy. Participating stores hand out the goods to both kids and their parent customers. Ward Pinkel from Urban Threads was extremely pleased this year as the small investment in candy brought in big returns at the store. “It took a while,” he told me. “Every year more families come out. It’s a big social party for the parents… and this year both moms and dads came out, which allowed one to watch the kids and the other to shop. This was our best Halloween ever as far as sales went.”
It looks like business owners really hit the nail on the shrunken head with this one. Tom Rooney, owner of Pavlov’s Togs went through ten and a half bags of candy this year – up from six last year. “I ran out at twenty after two,” he said. “And the kids are still going strong.” As if that was a signal, Ward from Urban entered the store and threw a bag of candy across the room to Tom who waved before emptying the goods into a bowl. It’s a safe way to ‘trick or treat’ for the kids, and a fun way for their parents to browse the fall selections.
Bill Zimmermann
Bill runs Seven Seas Sailing school, and is a staunch waterfront activist. He is also heavily involved with preserving, maintaining, and promoting the South Buffalo Lighthouse. When Bill first started writing for Buffalo Rising, he wrote an article a day for 365 days - each article coincided with a significant historic event that happened in Buffalo on that same day.