Halloween Laws May Make Your Holiday A Little Weirder
Halloween is well known for being a silly holiday, but what’s less well known are some of the silly California laws related to it.
Hollywood Boulevard, the city of Walnut Creek, and Los Angeles County each have regulations in place dealing with silly string, masks and zoot suits that could affect your Halloween fun.
In 2004, current LA Mayor Eric Garcetti and then-fellow LA City Council member Tom LaBonge championed th
e passing of LA Municipal Code Section 56.02, which made it illegal to have, use or sell silly string on Hollywood Boulevard from Oct. 31 at 12:00 a.m. to Nov. 1 at 12:00 p.m.
The official penalties for violating the ban on silly string include a fine of up to $1,000 and/or jail time of up to six months.
Multiple signs are clearly posted along Hollywood Boulevard advising partygoers of the fine. Jail time is not listed on the signs but receiving that as a penalty is rare, LAPD officials said.
Prior to the passing of this law, street cleanup efforts resulting in part from the use of silly string exceeded $200,000 for the day after Halloween, according to a news release put out days before the law first went into effect. The Department of Sanitation could not be reached for comment on how that cost has been affected since implementation of the silly string ban.
Other California laws potentially affecting Halloween say that you can’t wear masks or a disguise in public in Walnut Creek without a sheriff’s permit, and that wearing a zoot suit in LA County is a public nuisance.
The Walnut Creek regulation of masks was designed to stop robberies.
LA County’s zoot suit ordinance dates back to 1943 when fights between alleged gang members who identified by wearing the suits and U.S. sailors in the LA area were characterized as “zoot suit riots.” LA County took action and banned the flashy outfit in hopes of calming the violence after several altercations occurred between the two groups.
