Citywide October garage sales designed to clean out homes, bring visitors to town

Citywide garage sales being planned in Lawton for Oct. 2-6 and Oct. 9-13 are about more than cleaning out attics and garages.

Emmanuel Alfaro, who is coordinating the event with his I Love Lawton Foundation and the Lawton Fort Sill Chamber of Commerce, said the event is a good way to bring visitors to the city to spend money.

“Whenever I go to a smaller town and they have it (a citywide sale), there is so much congestion,” he said. “This is amazing in their city: having all these people from all over.”

Alfaro said all those visitors translate to financial benefits: if they spend any amount of time in Lawton, they will have to eat somewhere, he said, adding that if a garage sale addict wants to hit every sale he/she can, that may take several days and they have to stay somewhere.

“Our city needs something like that,” he said, of the economic benefit that hundreds of sales at the same time can bring.

Alfaro said he’s seen it work in other communities in the region, including Duncan.

“There were so many people in the little town of Duncan, I was stuck in traffic,” he said, predicting the same type of event will bring the same benefits to Lawton.

But at its heart, the citywide garage sale is a chance for people to get rid of items they no longer want, but others might, while cleaning out sheds, storage units, garages, attics and kitchen drawers. And to help a little more, Facebook’s Lawton Grapevine page will accumulate a list of local non-profit organizations that can offer pickup services for items that don’t sell, but people still want gone from their property.

The City of Lawton is helping the event by suspending its requirement that those holding garage sales must have permits issued by the city.

“Permit fees are waived for the event,” Alfaro said.

People already are paying attention: as of Wednesday morning, 184 residents had registered their addresses to be part of the citywide sales. Alfaro said he intends to keep pushing the event until the first day of the sale in east Lawton, with a goal definitely over 200 but perhaps as high as 300 to 400 addresses.

He said he also deliberately picked October for the sale. It’s a time before the holidays, just before Halloween and only a short time before Thanksgiving and Christmas, providing residents with extra money so they can better enjoy the holidays. Alfaro is encouraging everyone to participate.

“People buy everything at garage sales,” he said, adding he will continue to push for a larger number of participants. “That definitely will get people to load up trailers and trucks and take a trip over here.”