Is Mischief Night Dying? New Jersey’s vilest tradition isn’t what it used to be.

A version of this story was originally published in 2023.

Night of emptiness in Elmwood Park, it used to be a bigger deal, it seems.

When October 30th rolled around in the mid-1980s, crowds of teenagers in suburban Bergen County would gather in a parking lot off Gilbert Avenue, not far from the woods. It was the perfect place to avoid any police officers who responded to nuisance complaints during the nightly pre-Halloween draws, one member recalled.

“We didn’t do anything crazy. We threw eggs. We soaped the cars. There were a few hundred of us,” said Michael Foligno, a 1986 graduate of Elmwood Park High School who said prank night was known as Goose Night when he was growing up.

Nearly four decades later, Foligno is the police chief and business administrator in his hometown, which gives him a completely different perspective on Halloween night, a tradition that has survived in various forms in New Jersey and elsewhere. since at least the 1930s.

Oct. 30 was still a busy night when Foligno joined the police department in 1990, but it has become relatively quiet in recent years, he said.

“I don’t want to put myself out there or give anybody the motivation to prove me wrong, but it’s gotten less over the years,” Foligno said in 2023.

Whether you call it “Prank Night,” “Goose Night,” or “Cabbage Night,” New Jersey’s Oct. 30 tradition of raffles and mayhem has gotten less mischievous, according to several officials contacted by NJ Advance Media. ” or “devil’s evening”.

You can still see toilet paper hanging from trees and the occasional thrown egg, but rarely anything worse — and certainly not on the scale that neighborhoods experienced decades ago.

Ocean County Sheriff Michael Mastronardi has watched the evolution of Mischief Night during more than half a century in law enforcement, including 22 years as police chief in Toms River. organizers say it’s the second largest Halloween parade in the world.

There was a time when municipalities were concerned enough to set up roadblocks on October 30, he said.

In recent years, reports of problem behavior have decreased, Mastronardi said in 2023.

“A little criminal mischief, but nothing crazy. It doesn’t have the appeal it once did,” Mastronardi said.

There are many theories as to why things changed. Some note that teenagers have far more options for entertainment than a generation ago, starting with the near-ubiquity of cell phones. Others point out that, in general, parents are less inclined to let teenagers roam the night unsupervised.

“Parents are more concerned about their kids going outside after dark than when we were kids,” Clinton Mayor Janice Kovacs said last year.

Many homes now have cameras on their front doors, which Kovacs said seemed to particularly encourage the “din-don-ditch,” a prank that was once a staple of Mischief Night.

“It’s when you ring the doorbell and run,” Kovacs explained.

The origins of Mischief Night are murky, with some researchers tracing it to England in the late 18th century. It was the first mentioned in the US during the 1930saccording to an article in Time magazine.

Although the tradition of Halloween mischief exists in several places, including Delaware, Pennsylvania, and the Midwest, some say Mischief Night pranks are most popular in New Jersey.

A 2013 poll conducted by a researcher at North Carolina State University found that most Americans have never even heard of Prank Night. A survey found that 7 out of 10 US residents don’t know any name for the night before Halloween — other than October 30.

For those who know about the tradition of mischief and mischief on the night before Halloween, there are variations on the names. According to the survey, while many call it Hooligan Night, others choose Cabbage Night, Goose Night, Gate Night, Trick Night or Devil’s Eve.

In some communities, the “Night of Mischief” turned into more serious vandalism in a few years. In Camden in 1991, 133 fires were set during a mischievous night, attracting national attention.

There are still many municipalities in New Jersey that impose prank night curfews to prevent any pranks, including Elmwood Park, which has a 9pm curfew for those under 18 on October 30 and Halloween years, Foligno said. North Brunswick in Middlesex County has an 8:00 p.m. curfew on both days for those under 18.

According to Mayor Anthony Frato, the “Evening of Void” is particularly evident in Branchville, where on October 30 the borough paid a sheriff’s officer to supplement the New Jersey police.

“They overturned outbuildings. They washed the windows. They pelted the whole city with tomatoes and eggs. They were crazy kids,” Frato said last year.

Before he arrived in the Sussex town half a century ago, Frato said tipping was part of the holiday.

Now, “Punk Night” in Branchville usually involves nothing more than toilet paper on a few trees and duct tape around cars, Frato said.

“Every year I notice it less and less. It was really calming,” Frato said.

When Jefferson Mayor Eric Vilsusen was a child, pumpkins were smashed on the road on October 30 and sacks of leaves were occasionally set on fire, he said.

Shortly after he was hired as a police officer in Jefferson, Morris County, in 1986, Wilsusen said he was driving his marked police car on a Mischief Night patrol — and got hit by an egg. He said his cruiser often found itself covered in toilet paper, which accumulated as it drove past so many trees and poles covered in it.

“I remember when I first came, it was gangsters. Now it’s like nothing,” Vilsusen said of Mischief Night.

Kovacs, Clinton’s mayor in Hunterdon County, said last year that she had not heard of eggs being thrown in her city before the start of the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic.

“I remember when Mischief Night was very interesting. It was definitely a car window washer. It was eggs, lots of toilet paper and just generally kids having fun,” said Kovacs, a 1983 graduate of North Hunterdon High School.

“I’m not going to admit anything, but I knew others who may have posted toilet paper near the municipal building,” Kovacs said.

Foligno, Elmwood Park’s police chief, also attributes the decline in interest in naughty night to the changing times.

“We didn’t have cell phones, computers, etc.,” he said last year.

Contacted Friday, Foligno said extra officers will be on patrol this year, as in previous years, in case another Goose Night happens at Elmwood Park.

“Even though things are not as they were years ago, we still prepare for the worst and hope for the best. We are not going to relax vigilance just because it, so to speak, has not caught on with the current generation,” he said.

Please subscribe now and support the local journalism you rely on and trust.

Rob Jennings can be reached at [email protected].