By Linda Taaffe

Los Altos

The Los Altos City Council last week put an end to the annual Oct. 31 Halloween festivities on Orange Avenue after neighbors complained about hordes of out-of-town trick or treaters invading their streets in recent years.

The council denied sponsors the special event permit needed to hold the annual “Los Altos Safe Street Halloween Project.” The permit would have allowed the neighborhood to close off Orange Avenue, Edgewood Lane and a small portion of Washington Street on Halloween night to provide an area free of traffic for trick or treaters.

Neighbors said the street had become a “victim of its own success” and the holiday festivities had mushroomed from a few hundred local trick or treaters to about 800 last year, according to informal counts.

Several residents said they had handed out about 30 to 40 pounds of candy each before running out early in the night.

Some neighbors said they have gone as far as to turn off the lights and hide in their darkened homes in recent Halloweens in order to avoid the crowds.

“All I do is throw candy in bags. Halloween isn’t a neighborhood event anymore.

“Halloween has been taken away from me,” said resident Marie Backs, who has lived in Los Altos for more than 30 years.

Neighbor Victoria Parente said only 12 percent of the trick or treaters she surveyed last year lived within the five-block radius of Orange Avenue. She said some came as far as San Carlos and Saratoga.

Neighbors said the holiday began to get out of control in 1996 when the Rotary Club first closed off the area for the three-hour special event.

The Rotary ended its sponsorship of the event last year, saying that the event” had become a burden on one small neighborhood.”

Neighborhood resident and councilman Francis La Poll filed for a special event permit and took over sponsorship of the event last year.

He had planned to sponsor the event again this year, calling it a “wonderfully trouble-free” program.

La Poll said the event provided children a safe place to trick or treat.

In addition to closing off the streets to traffic, the event provided trash removal, liability insurance for any reported damage to homes or yards and street monitoring by local Ham radio operators.

La Poll said about 86 percent of the trick or treaters attended schools in the Los Altos School District, including Bullis-Purissima in Los Altos Hills.

All agreed that the event was well-intentioned.

Some neighbors suggested that the council rotate the venue to different streets or host an event on city property.