It’s almost time to ask, “trick-or-treating?” — but in some cities across the country, local lawmakers have implemented age limits for the Halloween pastime.
Instead of facing a costumed zombie or ghost, children over the age of 12 may instead face the long arm of the law. Teen offenders could face jail time or fines of up to $100.
Former Belleville, Illinois, Mayor Mark Eckert led an effort in 2008 to ban trick-or-treating by high school-age teenagers in a community of about 35,000 people.
“When I was a kid, my dad said to me, ‘You’re too damn big to go trick-or-treating. You’re done,” Eckert said at the time. ‘If that does not happen, then that is reason for the city council to intervene.’
While some Belleville residents complained about the ordinance, he said he often hears from people who are grateful for the age limit.
Some cities have implemented age limits for children to participate in trick-or-treating, with potential legal ramifications due to age restrictions. In the photo, a child stops to look at an Upper East Side house decorated for Halloween
Some have set an age limit around age 12 for who can attend door-to-door meetings, with penalties for teenage offenders including jail time or fines
The “Halloween Solicitation” ordinance prohibits those over the age of 12 from wearing masks in public on other days of the year and prohibits anyone over the eighth grade from trick-or-treating. This requires ‘permission from the mayor or chief of police’.
Those who do go door to door must be ready by 9 p.m.
In Virginia, several cities have had a trick-or-treat age limit since the 1970s.
Until recently, Chesapeake had a law that could potentially send any trick-or-treating teen to jail for up to six months.
The city eventually changed the law after a massive backlash, but there is still a law that states that any child over the age of 14 is guilty of a crime.
Officials don’t recall anyone ever being arrested or fined for being too old for trick-or-treating
The cities of Jacksonville, Illinois and Rayne, Louisiana both prevent children over the age of 13 from trick-or-treating.
City officials from Meridian, Mississippi to Bishopville, South Carolina and Boonsboro, Maryland broke up the ritual even younger at age 12.
Similar restrictions exist in Taft, Texas, where trick-or-treating is only allowed between 6:00 PM and 8:30 PM.
“The practice of people wandering the city late at night on Halloween night in recent years has … become undesirable,” places a burden on police and creates “an intolerable situation,” the city said in its law.
Still, officials can’t recall anyone ever being arrested or fined for being too old for trick-or-treating.
If anything, officers will let teens go with a warning or a phone call to their parents.
Law enforcement officers often release teenagers with a warning or a phone call to their parents
Even if they wanted to, officials acknowledge that the laws are difficult to enforce.
Still, they say announcing the laws annually keeps too many teens from violating the bans.
There is no way to know exactly how many cities have such ordinances.
The National League of Cities does not keep track of ordinances, and states have left such matters to local authorities.
Trick-or-treating evolved from the late medieval custom of children asking for sweets in exchange for praying for the household’s dead, says Hans Broedel, a professor of history at the University of North Dakota and an expert on early traditions.
Tricks — usually vandalism and other debauchery by teens and young adults — were a big part of Halloween for a time until a conscious effort in the 19th and early 20th centuries to shift the holiday to children, Broedel said.
Excluding teens from trick-or-treating could make it more attractive to do other, less desirable things, he said.
“Trick-or-treating is embraced in this country in large part because it serves to reduce teen vandalism,” Broedel explains. “Telling teens they can’t trick-or-treat certainly isn’t going to stop them from going out and doing whatever on Halloween.”