Coronavirus Messing With Halloween-Centric Towns

U.S. cities and towns that are closely associated with certain holidays – Santa Claus, Indiana; New York City and the New Year’s Eve ball drop; Turkey Town, North Carolina all come to mind – are finding that the coronavirus pandemic is wreaking havoc on their traditional celebrations.

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Halloween included.

Most of them are small towns and appreciate the annual influx of visitors and the tourism dollars that it brings.

“Historically you bleed orange the month of October,” Liz McFarland, president of the nonprofit that organizes Halloween in Anoka, Minnesota, one of the first American cities to celebrate the holiday, told National Geographic.

Halloween “has a big economic impact on the business community,” Anoka Area Chamber of Commerce President Peter Turok told the magazine.

While the town of 18,000 doesn’t have the resources to track visitation numbers, Turok says that businesses are usually “teeming with people in a normal Halloween. ... [This year] is a different story altogether as most of the events usually held are just not going to [happen] or will be held in a different way, which means people won’t be able to gather like they have in the past. The bottom line is, no events means no people and lost revenue for the merchants.”

And it’s happening all over the country in the most iconic places for Halloween.

— In Salem, Massachusetts, home of the witch trials from the late 1600s, all parades were canceled, including the Haunted Happenings Grand Parade, the Kids' Costume Parade and the Howl-o-ween pet parade. There is also no trick-or-treating.

— The Halloween Parade in Ocean City, New Jersey, is canceled for the first time in 73 years.

— In New Orleans, the annual Krewe of Boo Parade has been called off.

— And in New York City, the colorfully outrageous Greenwich Village Halloween Parade will not take place for the first time in 47 years.