Registrants Not Allowed to Celebrate Halloween/ Fall Holidays

Hear ye, Hear ye, All Registrants, You Are Not Allowed to Celebrate Fall !

According  to the Halloween/Fall Holiday paperwork one registrant received, Registrants can not celebrate the Fall Holidays!  Not just Halloween, THE FALL HOLIDAYS! 

What does that mean?

According to the list of Fall Festival/Halloween Restrictions For Sex Offenders there are to be no Fall Decorations, inside or outside your home!

Outside, No Fall Decorations that would make your home seem “enticing” to children.

This isn’t the Ginger Bread House in Hansel and Gretel?

The porch is (was) decorated with fall decorations, autumn wreaths, not covered in edible candies or caramel apples!.

How does a basket of mums on my front porch or a harvest wreath on the front door equate as “enticing” to children?

While other homes in the neighborhood are nicely decorated with Pumpkins and Cornstalks, I guess we’ll have to be satisfied with the dead leaves that the wind blows onto the porch and the scary spiders that spin their webs in the porch eaves. (Either that or bring out the Xmas wreaths in October. Go right from Easter to Xmas, skip any sign of Fall , altogether!)

I assume the laws can’t mess with Easter and Xmas holiday decorations because they relate to religious holidays.  So what happens if you are a Wiccan or Pagan Registrant? Both are valid, recognized  religions, both celebrate a lot of festivities, especially in the fall.  Aren’t their religious rights being infringed upon if they can’t celebrate their religious holidays with fall decorations and festivities? 

No fall decorating outside, it’s kind of crazy, isn’t it?

Now, what about inside? The paperwork specifically says, No Fall Decorations inside!

Better eat the bowl of crisp Winesap apples you have out on display, that could be considered a “Fall Decoration.”

Gobble up that bowl of candy corn you’ve got on the coffee table.  “Fall Decoration”.

The decorative blanket thrown across your sofa for chilly evenings.  “Fall decoration”.

Pumpkins on the fireplace hearth, spice scented potpourri in the air, fresh apple cider.  “Fall Decorations.”

When and where does the craziness end? Thanksgiving is a Fall Holiday, are we expected to give up our turkey too?

Oct. 28, 29, 30 and 31 registrants in this neck of the woods have a curfew.  5PM to 6AM.

Is there something going on on Oct. 28, 29 and 30 that I’m not aware of ?

The 31st is Halloween, but what are those other days and why is a curfew required??  Are they the Fall Holidays?  There’s nothing on my calendar that mentions Fall Holidays. Who came up with this?

According to the U.S. Probation Office Rules, this is “for the registrant’s safety”. Can’t be accused of anything or be “tempted to re-offend” if you’re not out and about on Halloween or any of the days leading up to Halloween, right ?

The idea that anyone would be “tempted to re-offend” because it’s Halloween, is made-up media/law enforcement hype.  Show me one case where any Registrant re-offended because it was Halloween.  Just one.  Every year it’s the same old “wrong” assumption, that all registrants are contact child predators.   It’s terribly unfair  of law enforcement to suggest that all registrants are “just looking” for an opportunity (like Halloween) to re-offend. No matter how they phrase it, the “safety rule for our benefit” is a load of candy corn.

Trying to pass off this rule as one that is “for the registrant’s safety” is an insult to the intelligence of all registrants and their families.

But the rule I love the most on this list is the one about Turning off your porch lights and Not opening your door on Halloween.

OK, that’s fine, we haven’t given out candy in years, no problem.  Saves us a boat-load of money not having to buy candy, never mind the worry of children in costumes and masks tripping on the front stairs, then speed dialing their attorneys on their new IPhone for a “slip & fall” lawsuit.  Who needs that?  We’ve got bigger problems.!

All registrants and their families should be questioning law enforcement as to how having our front porch lights OFF on a night when some people just can’t wait to get into mischief, reek havoc or worse, is making us safe????  We’re not stupid!  We’re not safer with this idiotic rule, in fact, if anything, it puts us in more danger. 

How many police officers or P.O’s would like to keep their lights off on Halloween? Would they feel safe? Probably not.

The P.O. has informed us that Extended Announced and Unannounced Compliance Checks will probably be performed on Halloween evening.

What is an “Extended Compliance Check”?  Is that the one where we invite the officer in to sit down and have cake and coffee as opposed to the “Regular Compliance Check” where they just chit-chat on the front porch making certain we’re home? Is it middle of the night visits or early morning before I’ve had a chance to brush my teeth visits? The info is vague.

And Announced or Unannounced Checks.  What does that mean?  Unannounced they just show up and Announced, they call before they show up? We can save them a trip.  If they call, and we answer the phone, there’s a pretty good chance we’re HOME. No need to stop by.

Either way, there’s a curfew on Halloween. I imagine we’re supposed to sit here in the dark, lights off, curtains closed, nary a KitKat or Hershey Bar in sight!  We can watch TV (no premium channels of course) by candle-lite, not a big deal but no one is making me give up my chocolate!

With lights off and not opening the door, how will we know if it’s a Compliance Officer ringing the doorbell as opposed to a rogue trick-or-treater who thinks it’s OK to trick-or-treat at a darkened house?

I actually asked the P.O. this question and was told “He’ll hold his badge up to the peephole on the door so you’ll know it’s him”,

“Yes”, I say, “but the lights are off, you can’t see anything through the peephole with the lights off and we’re not supposed to open the door.”

The P.O., bless his heart, he’s young, he looks at me like a deer in the headlights. I can tell, I’m one of those people who is asking him too many questions that he doesn’t  know the answers to. I want to tell him,”there are no answers, the registry, these rules, they’re all vague and they make no one safer”, but I bite my tongue.  We choose our battles wisely and this isn’t one of them. He’s just doing his job.

The Registry and the collateral damage it causes isn’t funny by any means, it takes’s it’s toll emotionally, financially and physically on all of us, but I’m determined to find the humor where ever I can in all of this Halloween/Fall Holiday ridiculousness. I won’t let it take our sense of humor. We survive and thrive BECAUSE when something is this ridiculous, we can still find a shred of humor in the lunacy of it all.

Celebrate Your “Inner” Fall Season & Halloween!

Oh Wait….

I Forgot…..

No “Inside” Decorations.

Damn!