Every year it seems that the controversies surrounding Halloween become more and more stupid.
Last year, fears over “rainbow fentanyl” sparked panic over brightly colored pills supposedly designed as candy. This year, parents expressed their disgust online at the “witch change(a clever but cruel way to throw away your child’s candy stash), and a school district in New Jersey announced the baffling decision to cancel Halloween celebrations due to concerns about the minority of children who do not celebrate the holiday.
But there’s also another Halloween debate that has long gotten out of hand: How old is too old to trick-or-treat? While this may seem like a question for parents, some local governments have issued their own regulations on who exactly can participate in Halloween candy collecting.
According to a recent NPR story, children over the age of 14 in Chesapeake, Virginia, caught trick-or-treating can be charged with a misdemeanor. Until 2019 apparently confronted six months’ imprisonment.
In close to Norfolk, Suffolk, Portsmouth and Virginia Beach do not allow children over the age of 12 to participate in trick-or-treating. Rayne, Louisiana, And jacksonville, illinois, also ban trick-or-treaters for teens. They can come to Belleville, Illinois beaten with a $1,000 fine.
It is unclear how often these laws are enforced. However, it does not appear that local police departments rigorously verify the age of trick-or-treaters.
“Officers do not spend Halloween evenings ‘carding’ trick-or-treaters, nor are they actively seeking ‘older’ participants,” a Chesapeake spokesperson said. Today in 2019.
It’s not entirely clear why these cities have implemented age limits for trick-or-treating; the most common – though often vaguely worded – reasoning seems to be an attempt to stop teen crime.
“We saw and heard especially from many seniors that big kids (kids in high school) didn’t come to the door until ten o’clock at night and that seniors were afraid to open the door and that they were afraid when they did the never open the door to the possibility that something would happen to their home,” Belleville Mayor Mark Eckert said in 2019 Slate interview. “Sometimes we have to make those decisions for parents who aren’t parents… It’s unfortunate, but in the world we live in today, sometimes the government has to make tough decisions like this.”
While there is something proof While crime does indeed increase on Halloween, there is no reason to believe that banning trick-or-treating for teens will reduce youth crime. More importantly, keeping teens away from trick-or-treating may make them more likely to engage in less beneficial activities.
“What would you rather have as a teenager during the holidays?” Desert News recently put. “Egg houses? Drink?”
The real problem with these laws is that they provide a legal solution to what is, at best, a typically social annoyance. Some find it off-putting when teens try to collect their share of the free candy, but truly disgruntled adults are perfectly free to turn away conspicuous teen trick-or-treaters if they wish.
It turns out that most people aren’t too bothered by younger teens joining in on Halloween fun, even though many cities would ban their participation in trick-or-treating. A YouGov. 2021 poll found that 26 percent of respondents thought no teen is too old to participate, while only 21 percent drew the line at age 12 or younger.