SATURDAY NIGHT REMAINS QUET IN CARBONDALE

CARBONDALE, Ill. -- Police Lt. Bob Goro and his partner, Sgt. Mike Osifcin, hit the streets over the Halloween weekend, hoping for the best but ready for the worst.

Both could easily recall Halloween 1994, when a sea of drunken party-goers stormed up and down a popular section of U.S. 51 known as "The Strip." Police used Mace and night sticks to restore peace after two cars were flipped and more than a dozen people injured.

But on Saturday night -- normally a busy shift for police just about any time of the year -- the only thing out of control was the bitter, cold wind. In fact, The Strip was so desolate that most of the 20 officers on walking patrol were picked up at 11 p.m.

"All you're going to get tonight is exercise," Goro joked to a reporter who tagged along while he walked his beat.

He was right. The only action Goro and Osifcin saw in two hours was checking out a door they found ajar at a military recruiting station and arresting a man smoking marijuana at the train station.

Over the weekend, at least, it appeared efforts by Carbondale and Southern Illinois University to kill an annual street party seemed to work.

All bars and liquor stores along The Strip were closed Friday and Saturday. Also, for the first time in two years, the college campus was closed for a Halloween break that lasts through Wednesday, and many students appeared to be gone.

Of course, the big question is how effective the crackdown will be later in the week, particularly Tuesday night. That's when some students are warning trouble might strike.

"I'll guarantee by Tuesday afternoon you'll get 80 percent of your students back here, and then they have all night to party and relax all day Wednesday," said Dan Dicristofaro of Addison, a 22-year-old member of the Sigma Nu fraternity house.

Police aren't discussing their strategy, but part of it obviously involves maintaining a high profile. Besides pairs of officers walking their beats, patrol cars circled the area constantly.

Campus officials a half mile away have taken down their football goal posts. Traditionally, revelers leaving closing bars have blocked The Strip to traffic and then tried to march through a wall of police to tear down the goal posts.

Osifcin, a 16-year police veteran, says Halloween weekend didn't used to be so rowdy. Until the early 1980s, the event had more of a carnival air, with families turning out and most people in costumes.

The problems seemed to start when the number of partyers in disguise dwindled, Osifcin recalled.

"I used to love to work Halloween," he said. "The people were friendly, the costumes were interesting. People would just go up and down the street, drinking beer and laughing at each other's costumes."