IN view of the "war against yobs" (Evening Press, October 12), and the campaign to get kids off the street after dark, is it too much to hope that action will be taken this year to ban the silly annual visitation of "trick or treat"?

It is nothing more or less than demanding money with menaces, as anyone who's had to scrape egg off their windows, or have one of them repaired, knows only too well.

The spectacle of children throwing food around in a half-hungry world lacks any tincture of charm or fun; and if nothing is done, sooner or later some yobbish trickster is going to be accidentally killed, or seriously hurt, by a justly infuriated householder.

John Parker,

Holly Terrace,

York.

Updated: 09:51 Wednesday, October 20, 2004