Trick-or-Treaters to Stick to Familiar Haunts This Year

After a decline in recent years because of safety concerns, old-fashioned trick-or-treating may be staging a modest comeback in the San Gabriel Valley this year--but in a slightly different form, parents and school officials say.

In a switch from the days when legions of little goblins and witches flitted through one strange neighborhood after another in search of candy, parents are opting to take their children to more familiar haunts for their door-to-door pilgrimages.

“I have a sense that there will be more trick-or-treaters out there this year,” said Gary Lawson, principal at Vine School in West Covina. “But the people I talk to . . . are pretty much bringing their kids back out to trick-or-treat in their own neighborhoods.”

Lawson plans to take his own children around his immediate neighborhood in Diamond Bar.

In Pasadena and other cities, parks and community centers will hold parties for children whose parents are still worried that more tricks than treats may lie in store on the streets.

At Victory Park Center in Pasadena, official Michael Jones said he expects more than 300 children to materialize at the center’s annual Halloween bash, which comes complete with a costume parade, carnival booths, a haunted house and “a little screeching and screaming in the background.”

One woman plans to combine the party with some selective trick-or-treating to raise the spirits of her 7-year-old daughter.

“First I’ll bring Lisa to Victory Park--that’s always a lot of fun,” said Patti Barnes, an Arcadia resident who works for the city of Pasadena. “Then I’ll take her to the neighborhood where I grew up--where I know the neighbors--and she’ll go trick-or-treating at five or six houses there.”

Lisa has never gone candy-collecting on the scale that her mother experienced as a child, Barnes said. But “she’d still be disappointed if she didn’t go trick-or-treating.”

Here are some other Halloween options for children today:

Children 13 and younger can participate in a Halloween costume parade in Sierra Madre that begins at 5 p.m. The parade starts at Kersting Court on the corner of Sierra Madre Boulevard and Baldwin Avenue and ends at Memorial Park on Sierra Madre Boulevard, where awards in several age categories will be presented at 5:30 p.m. for the scariest, funniest and most original costumes. The evening will conclude with a carnival at 6 p.m. and a haunted house at 6:30 p.m.

A costume contest at 6:30 p.m. and a spooky cartoon show at 7 p.m. will be sponsored by the city of San Gabriel at the San Gabriel Civic Auditorium.

More than 300 handicapped children from Sunset and San Jose schools, which serve the Hacienda La Puente and Rowland school districts, will participate in a special Halloween trick-or-treat program at Puente Hills Mall in Industry from 11 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.. The students, who are mentally and physically handicapped, and 90 participating merchants will be in costume.

Santa Anita Fashion Park, 400 S. Baldwin Ave., Arcadia, will host trick-or-treating in the mall. Merchants will give treats to children 12 and younger between 6:30 and 8:30 p.m.

A Halloween carnival will be sponsored by the Monterey Park Recreation and Parks Department and the Eastside Optimist Club at Barnes Park, Ramona and Newmark avenues, beginning at 3 p.m. A costume parade and the traditional lighting of the bonfire will be at 7 p.m.

The Temple City Parks and Recreation Department will sponsor a Halloween carnival at Live Oak Park, 10144 Bogue St., from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m.. The free event will include lighting of a bonfire and a costume parade.

The city of Azusa will hold a haunted house at Memorial Park Recreation Center, 320 N. Orange Place, from 7 to 10 p.m. Tickets are $2.50.

West Covina will offer a haunted house, carnival booths, costume contests and food from 6:30 to 9:30 p.m. at the Community Youth Center, Lark Ellen and Cameron avenues. Admission is $2.