Hard-Core Halloween

Riot gear, police barricades: Happy Halloween from Madison, Wis.! For the past four years, the college town’s annual party–one of the country’s biggest–has turned violent, causing police to deploy pepper spray and arrest hundreds. With 100,000 revelers expected to flood Madison’s streets for this year’s bash, the city is preparing a new party-control measure. Its main drag, State Street, will be open only to those who pay a $5 entry fee. “We’re recovering some of the $600,000 in taxpayers’ money spent on crowd control,” says Mayor Dave Cieslewicz. “Some” may end up being “a little”–only 3,000 tickets have been sold. Partiers simply plan to move to venues nearby (as in a block away), so few residents expect the fête to end happily. “People in masks feel uninhibited by morals,” says alderman Austin King, “let alone laws.”