By Laura OlsonThe Daily Northwestern

Boo! It’s Halloween day in Evanston – a day for ghosts, goblins and all the candy you can tease out of your neighbors. It’s a day to dress up in silly costumes and run around the neighborhood, squealing in fake terror.

Except in Evanston.

The city’s trick-or-treating hours span from 4 to 7 p.m., which is puzzling to me. Who is at home giving out candy at 4 p.m.? And more importantly, who is home from work to take their children door-to-door begging for chocolate?

What is it about this holiday that terrifies the city’s residents and officials?

Growing up in Nebraska, my biggest concern, as Halloween approached, always was whether the fickle-minded weather would bring a blizzard, canceling the holiday. Never in my wildest dreams did I imagine someone restricting my time for panhandle for sugar.

So what is it Evanstonians are afraid of?

In the past, the pagan background of the holiday was the biggest scare. Locals felt the holiday taught children about pagan rituals and witchcraft, and thus should be banned from school lessons.

Sounds like the “banish Harry Potter” song-and-dance that has brought only groans and laughter and thankfully disappeared from public discussion for the most part.

But Evanston aldermen practice magic of their own. Just last week, they transformed an “inclusionary” housing ordinance into a completely unrecognizable piece of legislation. Now that’s eerie.

Are parents worried about security? Safety should be a big deal, especially when we’re talking about a holiday marketed toward youth. And with an assault on a 21-year-old jogger last week at 6:45 p.m., maybe the hours aren’t such a bad idea.

But that jogger was still out running during the city’s time frame for trick-or-treating, so is there any time when we can be 100 percent safe?

Maybe it’s health concerns that really spook the North Shore parents. A hoard of costumed elementary school children bouncing down the street on a sugar high sounds like a parent’s Halloween nightmare.

But if parents can’t keep their own children from scarfing down all the candy at once, then even the government, with its trick-or-treating time frame, won’t be able to help these clueless adults deal with their mini-goblins.

Perhaps the biggest fear of all is that, in their door-to-door adventures, children will be assailed with ubiquitous political propaganda with the midterm elections just a week away. While many of the North Shore races will be relatively tame, a referendum on raising the tax that owners pay when they sell their homes has sparked mailings from local real-estate agents. As the GOP knows, there’s nothing more frightening than a tax increase.

At least the town hasn’t outlawed the holiday completely. The hours allow kids their candy and the stuffy adults to not be bothered by doorbells ringing after 7 p.m. It seems a silly regulation, but the kids still get their Sixlets and peanut butter kisses.

Besides, I have faith in Evanston’s youth. If these enterprising kids do their homework, at 7 p.m. they’ll hop the township border to Wilmette, where festivities are welcomed as late as 8 p.m.

The little goblins should use the holiday to break this silly cycle of fear. While the festivities should evoke fear, the holiday itself should not. Their parents are lost in today’s worries, but Evanston’s youth should be able to enjoy themselves on Halloween without officials bureaucratizing the holiday of pranks, silliness and sugar.

These children should be a little more ghoulish than the officials expect. At least I hope they will be.

City Editor Laura Olson is a Medill junior. She can be reached at [email protected].