American shoppers will spend a record $13.5 billion on Halloween this year, and they have begun treating the holiday as a full-contact endurance sport. In a new ritual that retail analysts are calling «the October Queue,» thousands of costumed buyers are camping outside supermarkets from midnight, still wearing their full outfits, to be first through the doors when the candy aisles are restocked at dawn.
The National Retail Federation, which tracks such figures, now publishes a daily «Candy Access Index» that ranks every county by the average number of hours its residents spend waiting in line for fun-size chocolate. In Los Angeles County, the index hit a level officials describe as «severe,» after a single Walmart reported a queue stretching through three parking structures and into a neighboring car wash. Shoppers there have adopted a lottery system, drawn at 4 a.m. by a store manager in a referee's whistle, to decide who gets first pick of the peanut butter cups.
Retailers have responded by hiring crowd-control specialists and installing turnstiles at the candy section. «We are not selling candy anymore,» said one regional grocery director. «We are managing a pilgrimage.» The $13.5 billion figure, while a record, now buys noticeably less candy than last year, which shoppers say only makes the queue more urgent. By next week, at least four states are expected to declare the candy aisle a critical infrastructure zone.