The annual Halloween block party on Court Street will not have a beer garden, but the city-owned Armory building, 2 W. Carpenter St., will host a haunted house during October, the service-safety director said yesterday.
The city will spend about $20,000 to repaint the building's interior, pay for the electricity and make other safety improvements such as improving fire exit signs and adding fire extinguishers, said Service-Safety Director Ray Hazlett.The $20,000 investment was a combination of $18,000 left over from constructing the Stewart Street sidewalks and money left over from a few other city projects, Hazlett said. The city will receive 40 percent of the proceeds from the haunted house to reimburse the expense. Hazlett is still looking for grants that might help pay for the renovations, he said.
The haunted house might not be able to alleviate the city's expenses for Halloween this year, but the cost of hosting a haunted house there will be minimal in the future and the Armory can now be used for other events, Hazlett said.I Scream Productions Haunt Designs, based in Lancaster, will be designing the haunted house, named the Scare University at Athens: the Carnival of Terror. The company will receive 60 percent of the proceeds to cover their costs for putting on the haunted house, Hazlett said.
The haunted house will open on Saturday, Oct. 6 at 7 p.m. and run from 7 p.m. to 11 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays and from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. on Sundays until Sunday, Oct. 28. On the day of the Halloween festival, Saturday, Oct. 27, the haunted house will close an hour early.
John Coen of I Scream Productions could not be reached for comment on the haunted house.
City officials also decided against hosting a beer garden on Court Street during Halloween. Although the proposed system was carefully designed to avoid serving beer to people under 21, the costumes at Halloween and the unpredictable nature of guests at the street party pose safety problems, Hazlett said.
Turning guests away because they had had too much to drink or their costume prevented verifying their identification to their appearance could cause confrontations that could get out of control, he said.
There are some positives and some negatives
but on the balance the positive isn't worth the potential risks Hazlett said.
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Akron University junior Mike Henkel, 21, (right) holds up fellow drinking team member, Akron University junior Cale Canoles, 20, for a keg stand from Ohio University (Chillicothe) junior Brett Mann, 21, who attended Block Party on Saturday dressed as a ke
Armory building to host attraction
