Darkness fell on Clematis Street, fertile ground this Saturday night for the young and undead.

Behold: The zombie Disney princess Veronica Gorbea, blood running from her decaying lips, in legion with her vampiress sister, Natalia—clearly bitten and turned into a night stalker before her 16th birthday—hands held as they instilled terror all around.

Which is all well and good as long as they were on their way home with their mommy and daddy by 9.

In the hours before Moonfest became a closed, 21-and-older affair, families and early arriving ghouls came for fresh meat—on a stick, that is, from the street vendors—and to hear live music at West Palm Beach’s annual downtown Halloween party.

But for the first time this year, the city gated the event with police, charged $10 admission and imposed a 9 p.m. curfew for all unaccompanied minors, hoping to curb the underage drinking and general mayhem that led to a crowd of more than 70,000 and 71 police calls—including a rape, two stabbings and too many fights to count—just two years ago.

And that was fine with Naty Gimenez and Philip Reilly, who came with the Gorbea girls for some Halloween fun before the adults took over.

“Just thought it’d be nice to hang out with the girls a little—early. Later, with the people drinking, it gets a little wild,” Gimenez said.

Early on, it was still college football Saturday, even as event organizers started letting in Moonfest partyers at 6 p.m. The likes of the murderous Jason Voorhees crossed paths with equally fierce-looking Gator fans skulking out of Duffy’s Sports Grill after a loss to rival Georgia.

Bands stationed at three stages throughout Clematis played live music mostly to a sparse and transitioning crowd. But it was too early to tell whether by 10 p.m., when the bulk of the party-goers in their fearsome finest had arrived and everyone without a paid, black wristband had been asked to leave, the new restrictions and gate fee would control, diffuse or simply suck the life out of the party.

Ron Gilbert, slinging kielbasa on the grill and slow-roasting barbecue near South Quadrille, wasn’t afraid of a smaller crowd—especially if it meant fewer meddling kids and Scooby-Doo costumes.

“In the past, because of the kids, they caused problems and sometimes we had to close up early,” Gilbert said, preparing a smokey redolent feast for Halloween undead.

Police made their presence known to any nefarious fiends. Officers were stationed in pairs every 50 feet or so along Clematis, and they patrolled all entry points onto the street. By 9 p.m., no crimes had been reported, according to a police spokesman.

That made plundering easy for a pair of pirates, Shelby Brown and Steve Kitts, of Boca Raton, led by the pirate captain Savanna Brown, 1, whom they pushed in the stroller before heading home early.

“They made it very friendly,” Kitts said, “and let people know you’re here to have a good time.”