Michigan town tried banning clowns at Halloween event

There’s a huge array of clowns in pop culture. There’s Ronald McDonald, The Simpsons’ Krusty The Clown and, of course, It’s terrifying Pennywise. Regardless of whether these characters are funny or creepy, they were all almost banned in Oak Park, Michigan, this Halloween.

What’s Halloween without scary clowns? They’re the most terrifying figures of all, beyond witches, goblins, ghouls and ghosts.

Read more: Watch artist make Rubik’s Cube Oli Sykes, Pennywise portraits

However, Oak Park Community Center’s annual Boo Bash advertised a night of fun with cider and doughnuts, trick-or-treating and costume-wearing. Unfortunately, the bottom of the advertisement stressed, “clown costumes not allowed.”

City director Laurie Stasiak told local news outlet KSAT via email:

“In the past few years many clown costumes have been given a very scary and evil look. Many scary and horror movies are centered around these types of characters. About three years [ago] there were national incidents in the news were people were dressing up as clowns and scaring people and in some cases assaulting them. Many people have phobias and anxiety about clowns. It’s because of this that we asked people not to dress up as clowns for this community event.”

This local story has been picked up by national news outlets and has caused some readers to question as to whether children should be banned for impersonating certain characters, such as clowns based on the belief that clowns are too scary.

The virality caused the city to issue a new statement saying they will not ban clown costumes, or any others from the Boo Bash. Instead, they are “encouraging parents to use their best judgment given this is an event that caters to families and small children.”

Do you agree with the attempted clown-inspired costume ban? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below!