Every October, a 19th-century house on the corner of Oakwood Avenue and East Street in Raleigh, North Carolina, fills with skeletons and zombies, and thousands of trick-or-treaters line up for candy. This year the city told its owner that the night would need a special event permit, not the small block party permit he had used before.
The dispute played out in the weeks before Halloween and ended with the tradition going ahead on schedule. The back-and-forth, reported by WUNC and others, shows how a front-porch hobby can outgrow a neighborhood’s rulebook.
A house that became a destination
According to Wikipedia’s entry on the property, the home at 504 Oakwood Avenue is owned by Jesse and Sue Jones and sits in the Historic Oakwood neighborhood near downtown Raleigh. Jones began decorating it every year in 2012, and locals call it the Oakwood Halloween House.
Jones told WUNC about the display and how it has grown. He describes it modestly. “My house is just a highly decorated house by someone who is obsessed with Halloween,” he said, in a line WUNC quoted…