Chris Christie Postpones Halloween
There won’t be any little ghosts and goblins tonight if Chris Christie has anything to say about it:
Gov. Chris Christie today signed an executive order to postpone Halloween until Monday because of unsafe conditions throughout New Jersey in the wake of Hurricane Sandy.
“In too many communities in our state, the damage and losses from this storm are still being sorted out, and dangerous conditions abound even as our emergency management and response officials continue their work,” Christie said in a statement.
Now I’m not sure how much legal effect this actually has, but Christie obviously wants to convey a message to communities across the state. Those communities lucky enough to have escaped relatively unscathed, and there are some parts of the state lucky enough to be able to say that, can make their own choices about how to proceed tonight. Quite honestly, given the reports we’ve seen on television and what I’m hearing from family up in Central Jersey about what the conditions are like up there, postponing strikes me as a wise decision. There are trees and power lines down all over the place, power is out, and traffic signals aren’t working. Not exactly auspicious conditions for children to be wandering neighborhoods at night.
Here’s the Executive Order:
This is just Big Candy trying to get two Halloweens in the same year.
Our Township has done this as well, asking people to go trick-or-treating on Friday. We’ll see how many people listen.
Halloween was postponed for a week last year in my second home in western MA. When we went out the following week hardly anyone was aware. Worst Halloween ever. If you can go out on the 31st, do it!
I think Christie is postponing Halloween because he already ate all the candy he was supposed to give out and doesn’t have time to restock before tonight.
Down here, most places have gone to Trunk or Treat at local churches. Much safer all around. I could see a few of those being of benefit in the disaster area to keep the kids occupied since they were often like mini-carnivals with bouncy houses and slides.
This is our second postponement in as many years due to storms.
Both of my young kids are at Halloween parties in town, but it’s like running the gauntlet to get them there. A mile drive through closed streets and pockets of power outages, not to mention the one gas station open in the area is in our town, so there are traffic jams for blocks around.
So all in all, a good decision. Many parents were considering driving to other towns to trick-or-treat until the order came down.
Just found out that the town in Jersey where my Dad lives has a 7pm to 6am curfew so there wouldn’t have been a Halloween anyway.
Our town did this last year after the freak snowstorm hit us. I don’t think they’re doing the same this year, but NJ got hit harder.
When Trick or Treat happens is always a local decision around here-weather or not.
A few years ago we had a big snow storm on Halloween and our town along with several others shifted Trick or Treat forward. My kids went Trick or Treating with winter clothes on-so it was tough to see the costumes.
Seems reasonable to move the date-although if a community is completely unscathed and being out and about doesn’t affect the ability of rescue operations in areas that need help, I see no reason they shouldn’t trick or treat today.
@Doug Mataconis:
The kids just have to dress up as a CNN News Crew, since curfews apparently don’t apply to them..
Halloween largely works by general agreement of the public, and is therefore awesome. To me, it’s just barely acceptable for government to even set trick-or-treating hours. But I agree with Christie in this case, particularly for some of the reasons listed in his order.
Chris Christie suspended Halloween?????? Next thing you’re going to tell me, is he stole Christmas!!!