In This City, 13-Year-Old Trick-or-Treaters Risk Jail

But Chesapeake, Va., won't be 'actively seeking out' offenders
By Arden Dier,  Newser Staff
Posted Oct 10, 2018 2:36 PM CDT
In This City, 13-Year-Old Trick-or-Treaters Risk Jail
Costume-clad people are seen in Freeport, Maine, on Oct. 31, 2017.   (AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty)

The trick-or-treating fun ends the moment a child living in Chesapeake, Va., turns 13. At that age, kids going door to door for candy on Halloween "shall be guilty of a misdemeanor" and punished with a fine less than $100 "or by confinement in jail for not more than six months or both," according to the city's ordinance code. It echoes rules on the books in Norfolk and Newport News, per CBS News. Chesapeake's website, however, says officials only mean to prevent trouble—like a "child taking pumpkins from porches and smashing them in the street"—and won't be "actively seeking out" offenders, per WTVR. (More Halloween stories.)

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