All over America, Halloween is a well known holiday. Though, this year won’t be very much fun for many children in the U.S. Kids look forward to dressing up and knocking door to door for sweet treats. This won’t be the case for thousands of teens this spooky, sugar filled day.

States throughout the country, such as Virginia, Illinois, Mississippi, South Carolina, and Maryland, have towns forbidding trick or treating for any child over the age of twelve. When bringing up the topic to friends, many said their families have an age limit. The most common age was twelve, while others said they stopped trick or treating at 14. With this in mind, making a town wide rule wouldn’t be a huge deal, right?

Once more research was done, there were serious consequences that were found. Chesapeake, Virginia brings the law into the situation.  City code, Sec. 46-8, states if any person over the age of 12 “engages in the activity commonly known as ‘trick or treat’, he or she will be guilty of a misdemeanor, fined up to $100, and/or put in jail for a maximum of six months. Similarly, if anyone is caught trick-or-treating outside of the designated hours of 6 to 8 p.m., he/she will be guilty of a misdemeanor, fined up to $100, and/or jailed for up to 30 days’’. When this code was mentioned in an interview with senior, Kylee Hall she said “Anyone is considered a child until they are 18 years old and kids should get to go trick-or-treating.” Hall also believes that participation in halloween activities should be determined by the child’s parent or guardian.

Later I spoke with Ransie Hall, father of seven, he mentioned when he was growing up the household rule was to stop trick-or-treating at twelve years old. Hall also enforces this rule with his kids, stating that trick-or-treating is for the little ones. While he may have lived his childhood with an age restriction, he does not think it is a problem for older kids to participate in the fun. While discussing Chesapeake, Virginia’s city code, Hall made the comment that these punishments are “going overboard” and that these are “just kids trying to have fun”. He doesn’t think the law should have to be brought into a harmless holiday tradition.

Luckily for the kids of Washington, there isn’t a law regarding trick-or-treating. There is not any plan for enforcing one either. So, this Halloween will be filled with candy and costumes for kids on the Peninsula. Just remember: if you plan on moving to this state you might have some rain on your Halloween parade.