Can you be charged with trespassing in NC for trick-or-treating? Are you allowed to host your own haunted house?
These nighttime Halloween activities are staples of the holiday. They also could carry some legal implications.
Halloween is just around the corner. This year, the Oct. 31 holiday will take place on a Saturday -- opening the door for spooky celebrations to potentially carry long into the night.
People have been celebrating Halloween for generations, and activities like trick-or-treating are baked into our cultural norms. But that doesn’t necessarily clear the way legally in every circumstance.
Here’s what state law and local ordinances say about trick or treating, haunted houses and more.
Trick, treat or trespassing?
Trick or treating is a time-honored custom in neighborhoods
across the United States, and you’re unlikely to find yourself in trouble for knocking on doors during Halloween.
The gray area enters the conversation when a property owner clearly posts no-trespassing signs and asks a trick-or-treater to leave. If you ignore this request, that’s when you could find yourself in some kind of legal trouble.
In North Carolina, local municipalities do have the authority to adopt juvenile curfews or even restrict trick-or-treating to certain times. However, no such restrictions exist in the Wilmington area.
Can you host a haunted house?
The answer is yes. But there are a lot of stipulations to consider, especially if you’re going to be attracting crowds.
First of all, Wilmington has a noise ordinance, so anyone hosting a haunted house may need to obtain a noise permit from the city. If the haunted house is attracting a lot of visitors, there are also concerns about impacting traffic and parking in the neighborhood.
Finally, if you are hosting any kind of Halloween event on your property, you could be liable if someone gets hurt. Haunted houses can feature things like fog machines, extension cords, and plenty of dark spaces, which could all cause injuries.
Bottom line: check with your local officials before going down this route.
Candy tampering
Tampering with candy is hardly a legal gray area, but it is something to watch for, especially if you have children trick-or-treating.
A woman was charged with a Class G felony in Sunset Beach last year after authorities said she was distributing “inappropriate, comic-style materials,” according to the Sunset Beach Police Department.
Charlie Kingree is the Pender County and trending topics reporter for the StarNews. He can be reached at ckingree@usatodayco.com.
This article originally appeared on Wilmington StarNews: Can you be charged with trespassing in NC for trick-or-treating?
