Halloween is a blast for kids, from the costumes to the trick or treating to the vast amounts of candy, what's not to love?  However, for us parents, it can be a little unnerving at times. 

Many towns and cities have those select neighborhoods where a great many parents take their kids trick or treating.  It can get very crowded, and bumper to bumper traffic and hundreds and hundreds of kids weaving from house to house is just not a good mixture.  So, if you find yourself driving in one of these neighborhoods Saturday night, please make it a point to drive at a crawl.

Speaking of neighborhoods, let's talk about a website that you may want to visit before deciding where to trick or treat.  City-data.com allows you to look up zip codes to find out where registered sex offenders call home.  Now, let me be quick to point out that I'm not in the business of casting the first stone.  I've known persons that have had to carry that label for quite a while and some of them have been able to move past those mistakes and become folks with whom I feel very much at ease.  However, this is a free service offered on a website, and I think it's a wise move to know everything you can about a neighborhood before taking your kids from house to house.  I found the easiest way to go from zip code to zip code is to just replace the zip code in the url address.

url
loading...

As the city-data website specifically states "It is possible that information displayed here does not reflect current residence or other information. Users are forewarned that it is incumbent upon them to verify information with the responsible state agency or the local law enforcement agency. Information displayed on this site provides no representation as to any offender's possibility of future crimes."

 

 

More From Newstalk 860