Trick or Treating Is Officially Still On In Appleton

Trick or Treating is still officially happening in Appleton.

The Common Council spent an hour deliberating over it. Discussion was had about how the Council lacked the authority to “cancel” a holiday and that they did not intend to post police officers all over the city to stop people from going door to door.

The main issues they were weighing was how much would the city be officially sanctioning Trick or Treating by having posted hours? How does one promote public safety in this situation?

The purpose of having posted hours is not to give permission to go trick or treating but rather to let the community know that this activity will be taking place and they should be extra careful as they drive around because lots of kids will be out. How do you weigh that against not wanting to officially promote activities that potentially spread coronavirus?

Health Officer Eggebrecht was in favor of going forward with Trick or Treating with recommendations in place–people at high risk of adverse outcomes from coronavirus should not participate, families should trick or treat as units and not comingle with other families, and treats should be put out on tables or in individual bags so that there is no physical interaction between the people passing out candy and those receiving candy. He did believe it was important to children mentally and emotionally to allow trick or treating if possible.

The Council eventually amended the resolution to encourage people to follow city of Appleton health department guidelines if participating in Trick or Treating.

Some discussion was had about whether to keep posted hours, remove posted hours, or truncate the hours. Eventually they decided to keep the hours posted to help put structure around the event instead of creating a situation where everyone was doing whatever they felt like whenever they felt like. They also opted to keep the hours Appleton has traditionally observed instead of shortening them out of a concern that if they were shortened there would be more people out at the same time and potentially congregating more closely due to the shortened time frame.

Alderperson Smith was displeased that his resolution had essentially been amended to state the exact opposite of what he had originally proposed, and he asked the city attorney if he could withdraw it from consideration but that wasn’t permitted by the rules. He ended up abstaining from the final vote.

The amended resolution passed 9-4.

Read City Hall’s announcement and more details about health recomendations on their Facebook page here:

https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=3440068239392423&id=696384680427473&sfnsn=mo