EGG HARBOR, N.J. — Spirit Halloween announced today that they will keep their stores closed until October, when they will reopen for a month before closing back up in November.
“Given the current state of the world amidst COVID, we see it as the safest move for our employees to wait until October to open our stores,” stated Spirit spokesperson Kofi Pearlman on Monday. “At that time, we will test re-opening our stores in strip malls across the country for roughly 4-5 weeks, before closing and looking into our next steps moving forward. All of our employees will be required to wear masks that are not only safe, but spooky, fully-equipped with safety features and featuring many of your favorite characters: Captain America, Pennywise, Pickle Rick, all the classics. We will also require people to stay at least one Frankenstein length from each other to maintain social distancing protocols.”
Unfortunately, long-time patrons of the seasonal Halloween store were upset by the announcement and are threatening to boycott the store.
“I can’t believe Spirit is submitting to the liberal agenda,” said local man Kenneth Bucksweat. “We should be reopening the economy so we can get back to buying our spooky goblin costumes and pumpkin carving kits, rather than giving in to tyrannical demands of notoriously communist politicians like Dianne Feinstein or Joe Manchin. Spirit will not receive a dime from me unless they reopen immediately and go back to selling skeleton window clings and neon-colored plastic rings with spiders on them in full force.”
However, some customers suspected opportunism.
“I don’t know if this is necessarily unprecedented,” claimed economist Bakari Towns. “Don’t they usually open in like, late September anyway? People aren’t typically banging on the doors for fake cobwebs and CDs of chain noises in the middle of summer.”
Spirit Halloween will also open 22,600 new locations in retail spaces previously housing newly-bankrupt JCPenny, Pier 1 Imports, and Dick’s Sporting Goods locations now out of business due to the pandemic.