Should Halloween Be Permanently Moved To Last Saturday Of October?
LOS ANGELES (CBSLA) — There is a growing movement online to permanently reschedule Halloween from every Oct. 31 to the last Saturday of October.
Every Halloween, children excitedly dress up as their favorite characters, then spend all night marching around their neighborhoods collecting sugary treats – more often than not on a school night.
The call to permanently make Halloween a weekend holiday is hoping for a safer and more stress-free celebration.
"I am so OK with this idea. I love it actually," said Jennifer Kim, CBS2's Traffic Reporter and the mother of two young boys. "Because the kids get all hyped up and it's a school night. It's mainly for parents -- we just don't want our kids to be all sugared up and it being a school night, and they go to bed. It's really hard."
School night Halloween celebrations also carry ongoing concerns of safety. Children dressed in dark costumes, just as the nights get darker earlier, amid commuters rushing to get home can sometimes result in tragedy. In 2014, three teenage girls who were out trick-or-treating were walking in a crosswalk when they were fatally struck by a hit-and-run driver in Santa Ana.
There have been a number of change.org petitions over the years calling for this change, but they all seem to regain steam during the summer, with more and more signatures being added by the minute.