Analysis: When should trick-or-treating be?

By Journal Times staff

Saturday, November 1, 2003 11:57 PM CST

RACINE COUNTY - While some children are recovering from the sugar high of Halloween bounty today, others will be out taking their turn to trick-or-treat.

Racine County communities are split on when to allow children to trick-or-treat, evenly divided between having trick-or-treating hours the Sunday before Halloween, on the day of Halloween or the Sunday after Halloween.

It hasn't always been this way. Before 1985, trick-or-treating hours in Racine County were routinely held on the night of Oct. 31. But safety concerns that swept the country in the 1980s, many irrational, led away from the Halloween tradition. Most communities moved their trick-or-treating hours to the daytime on a weekend.

In recent years, some have decried the move and called for a return to the Halloween tradition. They argue that communities have become overly cautious in their efforts to protect children and need to lighten up.

One reason for the backlash: many of the cited safety concerns are unfounded.

Much of the fear around Halloween is someone putting pins or razor blades into apples and candy. Though based in a few actual cases, the risk is overstated, according to www.snopes.com, a respected Web site dedicated to exploring urban myths.

In most incidents over the past three decades, the claims of objects inserted into candy were hoaxes. Further, the few actual cases typically have been traced back to children playing tricks on their friends or siblings, and even in these cases, the injuries were minor.

Even less common than razor blades in candy bars, though more frightening, are rumors of poisoned Halloween candy. According to snopes.com, there are no confirmed cases of such incidents

reported.

However, concerns about children being on the streets after dark may have merit. Parents of trick-or-treaters in Mount Pleasant expressed concern about the village's Friday night hours due to a lack of sidewalks and street lights, and our times simply don't allow young children to be out alone after dark. A forceful reminder came last summer with the death of an 6-year-old Racine boy who was hit while riding a bicycle at night.

Clearly, times have changed. But should communities surrender a tradition in the name of a perceived danger, or simply make a stand that, for one night, children will be safe in the streets? Should communities stick with tradition, or adapt to their surroundings?

Regardless, communities across the country will get a reprieve from the debate next year. Halloween 2004 falls on a Sunday.

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