Ed Wicks secures plywood over the windows of his business to protect from the high winds of approaching Hurricane Sandy, on Oct. 28, 2012, in Ocean City, N.J.(Photo: Mark Wilson, Getty Images)
Hurricane Sandy is doing her darndest to wash Halloween down the drain.
But she's only partially succeeding.
The
hurricane has barreled into the East Coast just a few days before the
national Halloween celebration was expected to generate upwards of $8
billion in spending coast-to-coast. The good news: Most folks already
have purchased what they were planning to buy for Halloween. The bad
news: Many East Coast merchants that rely on Halloween day, itself, for a
big chunk of business appear to be in trouble.
"Small
businesses relying on last-minute shoppers will get hit," says Kathy
Grannis, a spokeswoman for the National Retail Federation. "But the
storm is happening on a Monday (and Tuesday) after most consumers got
their shopping done."
Sandy is haunting Halloween by:
- Soaking celebrations.
While the gargantuan New York Greenwich Village Halloween Parade
scheduled for Wednesday night hasn't been canceled, the number of
viewers and participants is expected to be cut in half, and the city's
Halloween-related booty sliced from $90 million to $45 million. "We're
going to do it, and everyone will get wet," says artistic producer
Jeanne Fleming. "We know it's going to rain on our parade."
Newlyweds from England Christopher and Ingrid Foott, were to march at
the head of the parade on their honeymoon. They e-mailed this
cancellation: "We may have lost our honeymoon, but we know that there
are people who have and may lose so much more."
- Draining business. Economy
Party & Costumes, a Falls Church, Va., store which is normally
teeming with customers the final few days before Halloween, had to close
early Monday, and its manager projects the storm could cost the
family-owned business up to $50,000 - a big chunk of its 2012 profits.
"It's the only time we make a profit the whole year," says manager Shawn
Dimitriades.
- Washing-out takeout. While Halloween is
not a huge holiday for eating out, roughly one in five Americans opted
for takeout food last Halloween. That number could take a hit this year
if the storm or its aftermath forces a number of East Coast restaurants
to close, says Hudson Riehle, senior vice president of research at the
National Restaurant Association.
- Pummeling pumpkin patches. Cox
Farms pumpkin patch in Centreville, Va., which turns Halloween into a
celebration of pumpkin-picking and hayrides closed Monday and planned to
close on Tuesday. Reservations for both days were being switched to
Wednesday, when the weather is supposed to improve.
- Drowning fundraisers.
The Goodwill Gridiron Halloween Party with the Baltimore Ravens, hosted
by Goodwill of the Chesapeake (Va.), has been postponed. It's the
group's biggest, annual fundraiser, with proceeds helping job-train
people with disabilities. "We're heartbroken about it," says Jonathan
Balog, director of marketing. "You can't control the weather."
USA Today