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Let’s reconsider Halloween times, move hours next year to the weekend

Journal Times Editorial Board

Now that all the little nippers are enjoying their Halloween treats and the lit pumpkins have disappeared from front porches across southeastern Wisconsin, it’s time to reflect a bit.

Kenosha and Racine, and most other communities in the two counties, have moved back (or never changed) Halloween trick-or-treating to the late afternoon/early evening of Oct. 31 this year.

Traditionalists, who favor trick-or-treating on the actual holiday, appear to be holding wide sway in this annual debate. And, in fact, fully 91% of the communities we looked at in both counties held trick-or-treating on Monday evening – from Yorkville to Burlington, from Paddock Lake to Somers – they were lockstep in setting the trick-or-treat times somewhere between 3 and 8 pm, usually for two or three hours.

Only Pleasant Prairie and Wheatland in Kenosha County had trick-or-treating on Sunday, and our bet is they had more little goblins and minion-costumed little ones than the cities of Kenosha, Racine and other communities did on Monday night.

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Many youngsters were undoubtedly disappointed with limited numbers of homes with lit porches Monday, as many working families hadn’t yet returned home. Parents who work had to rush home early or otherwise make arrangements for their kids to make it out at all. Instead of a happy Halloween, for many it became a Halloween hassle.

While the nostalgia of “trick-or-treating must be held on Halloween” is strong in some, so is our conviction calling for communities to hold family-friendly, and much safer—and much better attended—trick-or-treating during the Sunday afternoon hours.

Our argument is bolstered by statistics that show Halloween is the deadliest day of the year for child pedestrians. A Vox Media story in October reported that pedestrians under the age of 18 are three times more likely to be struck and killed by a car on Halloween than any other day of the year. “That risk grows to 10 times more likely for children aged 4-6 years old, according to a study from 2019 in JAMA Pediatrics,” Vox Media reported.

A Washington Post study analysis found that 54 pedestrians younger than 18 were struck and killed by an automobile on Halloween each year on average between 2004 and 2018. That compares with 16 on a typical day.

Those are the fence posts in this debate. Convenience for parents and child safety on one side; traditions on the other. We argue for the family-friendly Sunday trick-or-treating option.

There’s plenty of time for communities to weigh this. Halloween 2023 is just under a year away and it falls on a Tuesday.

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