Before the incident that occurred at the Ritz Theater on Sixth Street during the Halloween Concert there in 1982 by the Uranium Savages, everyone in Austin was allowed to converge on Sixth Street and take over the entire street from end to end without Police objection. It was one large mob scene a la Marti Gras…until 1982.

The Savages had gathered that night with Jim Franklin to perform the annual Pumpkin Stomp, a ritual that involved the tossing of pumpkins down onto the asphalt. There were no barricades and no police presence back then and the drunken crowd got out of hand and started thrown back the pieces of pumpkin and also throwing beer and whiskey bottles. It turned nasty and all of the neon of the giant Ritz sign was broken out by hurled objects. To break up an obviously unruly crowd (and having no help from Austin Police Department), one of the band members set off a US Army smoke grenade that he always carried with him for moments like this. Some of the smoke drifted into the Ritz, where many people started crying "Fire" in the crowded theater. Fortunately the place was NOT on fire, but the Austin Fire Department realized when it tried to respond to the fire alarm that it could not get an engine to the Ritz from its’ downtown fire station only 2 blocks away and so, starting the next year, for obvious reasons of public safety, Sixth Street was blockaded off and the Police presence became ubiquitous for every Halloween to follow.

And that is why everybody in costume down on Sixth Street every Halloween since the Uranium Savages show in 1982 has been forced to walk in a slow circle with armed Police officers inspecting them from behind protective sawhorses – all because of a simple U.S. Army smoke grenade used by the Uranium Savages in a small attempt at crowd control all those long years ago.

This band still plays around Austin, but without smoke grenades anymore…