John: I am here with Alan Schwartz who is a Model Citizen from the September issue and is now a contributing columnist for Model Citizen Magazine. How are you, my friend?
Alan: I’m good, how are you John?
John: I’m great, thank you. So today I’d like to ask you about Halloween. This year I think everybody knows that Halloween is going to be much different than ever before. I think also that there are some things that our readers and your fans should know about Halloween to do with some legalities. Would you share with our audience please what they should be doing or not doing?
Alan: As you are aware, I’m a long-time criminal defense attorney as well as a Village Judge and, as such, we spend a lot of time dealing with criminal offenses and quasi-criminal offenses. We are continuing to be concerned about the uptick of inappropriate behavior in the community. This could be partially fueled by the pandemic, and partially by the fact that people, in general, at this point, just seem to be very angry, whether it’s about the election results, Black Lives Matter, Blue Lives Matter, or a variety of different things like the protests and so forth. What really concerns us is that people are getting even angrier when they can’t do the things they always look forward to doing. As an example, our domestic violence practice is going through the roof, because a lot of people seem to have discovered that, as much as they love their spouses and children, they can’t stand being locked up in the house with them for lengthy periods of time.
I think this is going to be a big issue come Halloween when the kids really can’t safely go trick-or-treating. It would be nice to think that may change since Halloween is still a few weeks away, but I don’t think so, certainly not to the point where it’s going to be safe to have children going door to door, touching things and not wearing appropriate masks, just decorative masks. We are particularly concerned about young people, not so much the small children, but the teenagers who, shall we say, like to be mischievous, to begin with, and get themselves into trouble. I think it is a good idea for us to go over some of the conduct that could put these kids in a situation where they would need a criminal defense attorney, such as myself. Perhaps by being educated, they will be smart, make good decisions, and not do some of the things that may get them into trouble with the law. As you know, our mantra is that we represent good kids, from good families, who do something stupid. Unfortunately, we expect to see a lot of this come Halloween this year