YOU MUST BE THIS YOUNG TO RECEIVE FREE CANDY

SHOW SOME RESPECT

THE AGE LIMIT FOR TRICK-OR TREATING IS 13 YEARS OLD

BY JOLIE BAUS

Chilly morning air, spooky decorations and an excessive number of pumpkins can only mean one thing: it’s that time of the season again. As the year delves further into October, Halloween plans have become a prominent topic. Festive parties, haunted house visits and scary movie nights are popular choices to celebrate the frightening holiday. While the most popular option, trickor-treating is responsible for many exciting memories for this fleeting moment of the year, should the candy crazed and fun filled activity be open to all ages? In short: no. The festivity is best suited for fans of all things spooky aged 13 and younger.

paying close attention to their surroundings.

even go home all together.

Turner Beshears

Trick-or-treating would become significantly more dangerous for children if it was normalized for people of all ages to participate. Allowing an older crowd to trick-or-treat alongside children jeopardizes the safety of the younger group, as it’s a common theme that adults have a tendency to help themselves to a few more drinks than usual on holidays, which doesn’t mix well in an environment teeming with children. According to statistics analyzed by the American Addiction Centers, it’s a proven fact that people do increase their alcohol consumption around holidays, especially Halloween. Specifically, drunk driving fatalities and puncture wound injuries become a more prevalent issue during the October holiday. On average, a whopping 23% of pedestrian deaths during Halloween are caused by reckless drivers under the influence of alcohol. With this in mind, encouraging people of all ages to trick-ortreat would result in more cars passing through the general area of neighborhoods designated for the Halloween festivity. This would give rise to the death of more pedestrians, many of which are younger children who wouldn’t be

For houses giving out the goods, buying candy would be considerably more costly if everyone trick-or-treated. With more trick-or-treaters comes a higher demand, and the drastic increase of people would result in either a major candy shortage before the night even hits 10 p.m. or an outrageous rise in expenses for candy supply. Considering not everyone can afford a colossal candy stash, there’s a strong chance some houses would opt-out of giving sweets away entirely. Thanks to an older crowd entering the scene, trick-or-treaters as a whole would be left with less candy than before, which almost completely defeats the purpose of the festivity.

As implied by the name, “trick-or-treating” goes hand in hand with receiving treats, so a shortage of candy would significantly detract from the appeal of the spooky celebration. Even for more affluent neighborhoods that can afford the steeper expenses for candy, the added cost would ultimately be unnecessary since older teens and adults trick-ortreating sully the experience overall regardless.

The lines to receive candy would also become outrageously long, which isn’t fun for anyone involved in the night out activity. As the number of people trickor-treating would increase if more people participated, the length of the lines would dramatically grow as well. Adults and teens are arguably equally as impatient as children on a night dedicated to fun and excitement, so no one would be enjoying themselves waiting for extended periods of time at a single house. Instead of being able to easily walk around door to door whilst admiring all of the extraordinary decorations, the average trick or treater will only be thinking about how much they’d like to sit down or

Some might argue that the younger trick-or-treaters would barely even acknowledge the more mature group alongside them, so normalizing the festivity being open to all ages wouldn’t cause serious disruption. Children wouldn’t be paying attention to anyone or anything else but the impressive house decorations and the number of candy bars accumulating in their bags. People may believe an older and younger crowd of trick-ortreaters could easily co-exist so that those who fall in the former category can have the pleasure of feeling youthful and care-free again.

It’s important to consider, however, that adult costumes tend to lean towards the scarier or more intense side, which could distract the kiddies from enjoying their time out with friends and family and make them generally uncomfortable. Trick-or-treating has been more of a designated child activity for years now, so normalizing the integration of older crowds would detract from the secure and wholesome aspects of the younger generation’s Halloween experiences and memories.

It isn’t fair to the little trickor-treaters to tarnish their fun night out simply so that older teens and adults can relive childhood memories of their own, which they themselves created without the disruption of a slew of older people. Allowing the new generation of trick-or-treaters to have an equally positive experience as the generations before them did is not only the morally correct course of action, but the most logical.

For Halloween lovers exceeding the 13 year cap, it’s time to retire the old trickor-treat bag and indulge in one of the many other, more age-appropriate alternatives to enjoying the exciting night.