Trick Or Treat, And Make It Snappy Pinehurst Limits Trick Or Treating To 1 Hour

Can you ever be too popular?

Ask treat-givers on Fourth or Woodland in Pinehurst, and they just might tell you yes. Those homes may be visited by up to 400 trick-or-treaters on a given Halloween.

“You really have to see it to believe it. We’re talking bumper-to-bumper traffic, a mass of kids,” said Pinehurst Councilman Gary Hoffman, who recalls one year so busy he literally wound up raiding the cereal cabinet to appease the miniature goblins and witches.

The homes in these neighborhoods are easy to get to and well lit. Their owners tend to buy great treats. Word gets around. Some trick-or-treaters come from surrounding towns. Some do those streets more than once.

Contacted by several of the besieged homeowners, the Pinehurst City Council this year voted to cut trick-or-treating hours from two to one, a restriction Kellogg and Smelterville have already adopted.

But according to some Pinehurst moms, that’s not fair to most of the kids.

“How far do you think me and my five-year-old in a snowsuit can get in an hour?” demanded Korena Cochran, mother of three. “I’ll tell you. Not far.”

A room mother and an art volunteer at Pinehurst Elementary School, Cochran sews her kids’ costumes by hand. As she points out, that’s a lot of work for a one-hour event. Cochran already has four pages of names on a petition to reinstate the two-hour limit.

Hoffman agreed that the restriction is an unfortunate case of making everyone suffer for the abuses of a few.

“Maybe next year we can come up with a more creative remedy - a town party, someplace for the kids to go,” he said.

That would make Cochran more than happy. “It’s just that we have so little for the kids here already,” she said. “You hate to see anything taken away.”

The one-hour time limit has been in place in Kellogg for more than 10 years.