Biz Owner Urges Residents to "Shop lo-ghoul" for Halloween

For eight years, Drew Washer, owner of on Kentucky Street, has operated a separate stocked with costumes, fake blood, wigs and pretty much anything else you’d need to mark the holiday in style.

But last year, Washer found herself having to compete with Halloween City, a national retailer that opened at the old Mervyn’s site on South McDowell Boulevard about a month and a half before Halloween. The competition drove down sales and resulted in a lot of left over inventory -- and a financial hit.

“It definitely made it hard to pay the bills,” Washer says. “We didn’t run out of anything, like we often do, and it dampened the spirit of Halloween.”

Temporary big box stores are a common sight around Halloween, but some local merchants say they steal business from the mom and pop shops that are the staple of downtown Petaluma. The problem is, can anything be done about it?

“People like temporary big box stores because they are convenient,” says Washer, who has owned Heebe Jeebe for 12 years. “But they don’t have any allegiance to the community. They just make their money and then leave.” In contrast, Heebe Jeebe puts on a fundraiser every year for a local cause and also has "outposts" at the Adobe Pumkpin Patch and other sites where they sell Halloween items.

Washer was so scarred by the experience that she considered not having a Halloween store this year. But a lot of people have come to rely on the store for both wacky things, like skull bouquets and burlap zombies, as well as the practical -- yards and yards of fabric, for example.

"It's a service and something we want to provide the community," Washer says. This year, she's nervously eyeing Spirit, a national Halloween-themed chain store due to open at 901 E. Washington St. this month.

Washer even came up with an idea for a movement called "Shop Lo-Ghoul" (get it?) to encourage residents to patronize local businesses, including the pumpkin patch operators and, yes, local vintage shops where many buy costumes.

“There is a community of Halloween providers who really care about what goes on in the community," she says.