Groceries won't sell eggs to minors
Categories: Teens & tweens, Places To Go, Safety, Education
When I was at the grocery this past weekend buying a few odds and ends for my annual Halloween brunch I noticed a sign at the entrance that stated no eggs would be sold to minors for the next week. This, of course, was the neighborhood grocer's way of deterring kids from egging houses, cars and each other this Halloween.
I've never seen a sign of that nature before, but I'm not surprised to see one now. As a kid, I would've been totally miffed (yes, miffed--I'm bringing the word back from hibernation) to see such a sign. As an adult, and now a parent, I guess I should take some comfort in it.
Actually I'm feeling pretty neutral about it. I get how local establishments are doing their part to keep the bedlam to a minimum this Halloween. But here's the thing: as far as I know, egging a house is gross and a pain to clean up, but is it that dangerous, in the great scheme of things? Is egg that damaging, chemically?
It's one of the things that makes being a kid fun and Halloween fun too. I guess I would be annoyed if my house or car got egged, but I don't know that I would press charges. Either way, if kids want to get eggs around my neighborhood in Brooklyn this Halloween season they'll have to get them somewhere else.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 7)
April 10-29-2007 @ 8:15AM
I've known people who have said that egg has ruined the paint work on their cars.
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Heather 10-29-2007 @ 10:28AM
That shop owner will come to work and discover his store has been egged.
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queenoqueens 10-29-2007 @ 8:51AM
I have to say I get a little "miffed" (2 people have used it now...it's officially back in circulation) when teenage vandalism pranks are minimized. While there may not be serious property damage, or harm to any living creatures, it is still vandalism.
Are we going to teach our teenagers that if you inconvenience someone for your amusement, it's ok, because you're young and dumb?
I think there should be zero tolerance of this kind of thing. The punishment should fit the crime of course, but still we shouldn't make it sound like it's in any way acceptable.
Not that you were doing that. I'm just sayin.....
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ikate 10-29-2007 @ 9:14AM
As a teenager our neighbor's house got egged and the eggs ruined the aluminum siding - they had to get the whole house re-sided. A little "prank" turned into a several-thousand dollar repair.
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Nicholas 10-29-2007 @ 10:14AM
From a strictly business point of view, I would think the grocery would do the opposite, like say put the eggs and toilet paper in a section together near Halloween candy and mark up the price. These mom and pop stores never consider the bottom line.
"As a teenager our neighbor's house got egged and the eggs ruined the aluminum siding - they had to get the whole house re-sided. A little "prank" turned into a several-thousand dollar repair." -- I'm going to cry fowl on this one, I know for fact that you can spot replace siding. Unless every inch of the siding got ruined, I'm guessing they replaced it all for ulterior motives--maybe they had been wanting to anyway.
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kevin 10-29-2007 @ 10:37AM
I'll second the eggs ruining paint post above. Some classmates from high school ended up with substantial paint damage to their new cars because their friends decided to play a prank.
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nae 10-29-2007 @ 11:07AM
I know when I go into work this week as a claim adjuster I will have several claims where the egg has ruined the paint job on vehicles. They should stick to toilet paper. Less damage can be caused that way.
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vacelts 10-29-2007 @ 11:20AM
I'm not actually condoning the prank of egging, but I have to ask if this will really quell the pranksters?
My own teenage pranks were limited to those that didn't inflict property damage. So I have to ask do teenagers really spend their own money to buy eggs in this prank? Or do they just take them from their parents fridge?
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Sandyone 10-30-2007 @ 10:34AM
Stores were withholding eggs from kids back when I was a kid.
I think they should. Egging isn't just a silly prank. There is a meanness behind it, not to mention the damage caused to surfaces.
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SKL 10-29-2007 @ 3:01PM
I side with those who say egging is NOT OK, it is not funny, and it should not be tolerated. If I found out my kids did it, I assure you what we would be having together would NOT be a laugh.
My brother "egged" someone's house when he was about 12. The dad was drunk at the time, chased him down in his car, and ran over and completely destroyed the bike he was riding (mine). My brother had to go to juvenile court and pay a fine. (The drunk was not punished.) No, egging is not funny.
I don't think kids realize that egg damage can be a big deal. All the more reason to make it harder for them to get the eggs in the first place.
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Crystal 10-29-2007 @ 4:40PM
Our house was egged when I was kid. The next day my dad went out there with a garden hose and a little soapy water, and problem was solved.
I suppose if you live in a huge house and the vandals were tricky enough to aim high, where you cant easily reach, that would be an issue.
It shouldnt be up to store owners to stop kids from turning into little vandals. This is one of those moments where parents need to be parents. Teach your children the value of a persons private property. And that vandalism in a crime, and its punishable, and its stupid. My parents did, and I am proud to say, I have never egged anything in my life. Aside from a frying pan. lol
AND, you can bet if my child ever went out egging or toilet papering (and ofcourse, I would know, because I KNOW where my children will be) their personal belongings would be outside and mom and dad would have a blast egging and/or toilet paper the crap out of all of it. Eye for an eye, right?
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Heather 10-29-2007 @ 5:43PM
Good for them. There are some teens here who sit behind the bushes across the street of my ex's apartment building and egg every car and bus that comes along. If anyone stops they run behind the other apartment building. calling the cops does no good because from thier vantiage point they can see all the traffic and the traffic can't see them.
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acm 10-30-2007 @ 12:35PM
eggs are amazingly destructive. Crystal's experience of "washed off with a hose, no problem" is pretty unusual -- more common is that it dries, becomes practically impervious to all cleaners and solvents, and results in a need for repainting (even more serious, of course, for cars, where you can never get paint as good as what the factory baked on). [I used to work in a lab that worked with fertilized eggs, and we kept one large beaker for cracking/disposing of them, because you could never really get the albumin (=egg white) off of any glass or metal, even in an autoclave.]
also, kids around here are into "Devil's Night" (the night before Halloween, somehow having missed the origins of Halloween itself), and will sometimes drive around throwing eggs at *people*, which is dangerous not only because high-velocity shells are pretty brutal, but because pretty much no dry-cleaner will claim any success in getting albumin off of cloth. I lost a pair of contacts and a cashmere/wool coat to some dumb kids in from the suburbs for such *fun* in Philly one year.
but I'm with other that think the grocer is likely to little to stem the tide.
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kchara 10-30-2007 @ 8:07PM
I didn't pull any pranks like egging when I was a kid, but, about two years ago, there was a teenager on the side of town I lived on who was egging with his friends one night. They hit one guy's truck, and he went back to find them, raging mad. They ran into a library parking lot where he found them and shot the boy, killing him. What a tragedy!! I think the adults are *far* more dangerous than kid's pranks ever have been!
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kt 10-30-2007 @ 8:07PM
Does this type of thing happen more in the South than the west?
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althead2007 10-30-2007 @ 8:16PM
So... one store in Brooklyn won't sell eggs to kids. Are we to assume this is the ONLY store in Brooklyn that sells eggs, or that all of the other stores in the vicinity that sell eggs won't sell them to kids? If he is the only one doing this, then it probably won't make much of an impact (pun intended).
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Dean Harding 10-30-2007 @ 8:20PM
A matter of how you look at eggs being thrown I guess. My daughter and two of her friends were killed in a car accident Halloween night 2000 because of an egg being thrown at the car she was riding in and bad judgement on the drivers part who decided to chase the vehicle from which the egg was thrown.
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Heather 10-31-2007 @ 12:58PM
I think this is kind of dumb. I mean, I get where they're coming from, but when I was teenager I was very responsible and I would never have participated in something as absurd as egging a house. However, I have always liked to bake, especially for school events, such as Halloween parties. So what if a kid wanted to buy eggs to bake brownies or something? It seems silly to deprive him or her of purchasing eggs for the intended purpose just because some of their less intelligent peers might use them for vandalism.
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LOU 10-30-2007 @ 8:29PM
I WOULD THINK THAT STORES ALL OVER THE USA SHOULD BAN SELLING EGGS TO KIDS BECAUSE ITS FOOD AND ALOT OF PPL ARE LOOKING FOR FOOD AND ITS A WASTE OF MONEY. ALSO I HAVE SEEN KIDS PITCH EGGS AT BUSES AND TRAIN WINDOWS AND IF A WINDOW IS OPEN SOMEONE DOES GET HIT WITH THEM.ITS ALSO A MESS TO CLEAN=SO BAN THE EGG FROM STORES FOR KIDS..............
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Joey 10-30-2007 @ 8:30PM
As a teenager, I'll admit that I have egged houses and cars before. While I know that it can ruin the paint on cars (Only if it stays on long enough and freezes however), I am not so sure about houses. Last year, in the dead of winter, there was a scandal at school. A girl heading the Save Darfur committee had been caught stealing money from the profits of T-Shirts being sold to buy herself cigarettes. Now, I did not care about Darfur, and I still don't, but the fact that somebody would steal from a relief fund set me off. A few of my friends and I decided that this girl had it coming, and we egged her house. Not only that, but we egged the boy who had been helping her steal the money's house as well. Long story short, the word got around, and the families found out, and they sent the boy's brother to get us to fess up. My friend cracked (No pun intended) and told them everything. Our punishment was to pay for the cars to get cleaned, clean up the mess at the houses, and apologize to the families. Now, remember, this was the middle of Winter in Michigan, so it was FREEZING. Despite that, a few buckets of hot water and some industrial cleaners and hot towels later, and the eggs were completely gone from the house. Except for the second story of the girl's house. We left that as a reminder.
The grocer's have a right to not sell the eggs to the kids, but why would they not want to? It makes them money, and it is not like they are to blame for the crime. It is good that they care about the community, but there are much worse things you can buy at a grocery store then a few dozen eggs.
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