Halloween by the numbers

By Stephen Harrison

I was asked to write an article that looked at the dark side of Halloween. I said I was the wrong person for the job, because candy is delicious and costumes are fun. But in the spirit of balance, I will add that too much sugar is bad for you, and if you’re wearing an Invisible Man costume you might walk into a streetlight and hurt your knee.

Surely there are some other negative aspects of Halloween, though. Perhaps the holiday stands as a testament to spending run amok and our increasingly consumerist culture. In 2012, the Retail Council of Canada reported that the average family of four would spend close to $300 on Halloween, or $75 per person. Costumes alone would run $60 a head. They reported $1.5 billion of Halloween spending nationally in 2011, including $322 million on candy. For those keeping track, that works out to over a billion mini-Snickers sold.

But even if the average person is spending around $75, I think it’s worth putting those numbers in perspective. Halloween is an “event” holiday, and that’s not much more than one might spend on the occasional concert or lavish night on the town. Carving pumpkins, planning and making costumes, trick-or-treating, and house parties can turn that $75 into a night, weekend, or week of fun.

Nevertheless, the Globe and Mail’s Rob Carrick writes that people should resist this type of “event-spending,” including back-to-school and Halloween excess. He says it’s an opportunity to “show your children how to be informed consumers.”

Carrick makes a number of good points, but I think children can learn some important skills about being a savvy consumer by embracing the excess of Halloween night. Maybe Street X gives out nothing but orange-and-black wrapped candies, but your Facebook friendquaintances tell you Street Y is lousy with full-size chocolate bars. You’ve only got one shot at this, and your trick-or-treating hours are limited! With some careful planning, you’ll find that your candy-to-time ratio improves year after year.

I would be remiss if my pro-Halloween piece didn’t acknowledge a possible uptick in police calls on Halloween night. In 2013, Saanich police said Halloween is their “busiest night of the year,” and they put their focus on public road safety. The Victoria Police Department reported that the Saturday before Halloween 2012 saw four times as many calls as New Year’s Eve.

On volume alone, however, Halloween itself isn’t always so busy. Between 2003 and 2009, Halloween 2008 – a Friday – looked like the busiest October 31 for the Victoria Police department: there were 226 calls for service and nearly two hundred 911 calls that night. But the next day, the police reported that it was actually “about the same as our usual Friday and Saturday nights.” For context, VicPD reported in 2011 that there were an average of 150 calls for service per 24-hour period.

Halloween can and should be a fun and safe time for everyone, and hopefully November 1 will feature news stories from our local police departments about a relatively quiet Halloween Friday. I would like to invoke the spirit of the Great Pumpkin to ask that Victorians put their Halloween energies on candy before debauchery, and on savvy consumerism before crimes and misdemeanours. Have a happy Halloween!