Nothing scary about the Grove’s jump in business during Halloween

Spooks and scares. Candy and costumes. Halloween is known for all that. But what it often doesn’t get credit for is the obvious, albeit brief, spike it provides to the economy, especially in places like Coconut Grove, where thousands crowd the sidewalks every Halloween to party it up.

Coconut Grove, only minutes from the University of Miami, has been a hotspot for students on Tuesday and Thursday nights for years. But nothing compares to the mayhem experienced every Oct. 31, as restaurants and bars tend to stay open later to capitalize on the influx of customers.

Chris Carroll, a manager at Mr. Moe’s, a popular restaurant/bar in Coconut Grove, was excited this weekend about the opportunities Halloween provides for his business.

“We’re having a full staff on, when we usually go with half-staff on Sunday,” Carroll said. “We’re also expecting about four times the amount of business than we do on a normal Sunday.”

Erick Espinal, a promoter for various clubs in the Grove and South Beach, said the Grove on Halloween “is as busy as it gets” any time of year.

“It is definitely a nice pay day for anyone who is involved with nightlife in that area,” he said.

With the crowd expected to reach anywhere from 10,000 to 15,000 patrons, there are obvious risks taken by businesses when it comes to underage drinking. But Carroll didn’t seem worried.

“They block off the streets, there are 10 times the amount of cops — two or three cops on every block,” he said. “An actual police presence. We have a cop at the front door. That’s a pretty big deterrent for underage drinking.”

Carroll seemed less concerned about the college crowd than he was about high school students crashing the Grove.

“I mean a kid can go to a liquor store, or pay somebody to go get them alcohol, and there is almost no way to police it,” he said. “So you have the potential for severely underage kids wandering the streets intoxicated, despite not being served by any of the establishments.”

While many businesses promising to stay open later (a manager at Chili’s said the restaurant would stay open until 3 a.m., or four hours later than a normal Sunday), not all are following suit. Diego Rosado, a manager at Starbucks in the Grove, said his shop would close early.

“Halloween is a tremendous business opportunity for many businesses in the Grove, and you can sense the excitement,” Rosado said. “It’s definitely a great place to be. But it’s more of a drinking night, not a coffee night. We’ve closed early in years past, and we’re going to close early again for Halloween.”

UM student Jon Gottlieb said his fraternity would be running buses to the Grove on Sunday.

“Add in the additional crowd on Halloween, and it lends itself to astronomical spending on this night,” he said. “The Grove is so packed that there’s no way businesses that open their doors later won’t see a spike in sales.”