OAKDALE — In what officials are calling the largest candy seizure in county history, the Trick-or-Treat Candy Rationing Authority raided a suburban garage Tuesday and confiscated 400 pounds of full-size candy bars from a man they describe as “a neighborhood legend, and not in a good way.”
The suspect, identified in court filings as Dale Wexler, 52, had become infamous on the cul-de-sac for handing out full-size bars — the good kind, with almonds — to trick-or-treaters every Halloween for nine consecutive years. Neighbors reported lines of children stretching three houses deep, and at least one family admitted to driving in from two towns over.
“There’s a social contract,” said Authority director Susan Merritt, standing beside a folding table stacked with evidence bags of seized chocolate. “You give out the fun-size bars. Maybe, if you’re feeling generous, the king-size on a good year. Four hundred pounds of full-size bars distorts the entire local candy economy. The Johnsons’ house got eleven kids last year. Eleven. They had to give out raisins. Raisins, people.”
Wexler was unrepentant. “I buy in bulk. I have a membership. The kids’ faces — you can’t put a price on that,” he said, as agents wheeled dollies of confiscated candy to an unmarked van. “Although technically, I did. It was $612. I have the receipt.”
The Authority, formed in 2019 after the Great Gummy Bear Surplus of 2018, enforces the county’s Halloween Candy Equity Ordinance, which caps individual households at 25 pounds of distributed candy per season and prohibits what the ordinance calls “ostentatious generosity designed to shame neighboring distributors.”
“We’re not the bad guys here,” insisted field agent Tom Rourke, loading the final box. “We love candy. Everybody at the Authority loves candy. But unchecked generosity creates a candy aristocracy, and candy aristocracies lead to raisins. It’s a slippery slope and we’ve got the data.”
The seized candy will be redistributed through the Authority’s Candy Equity Program to 200 households deemed “candy-insecure,” defined as homes that ran out before 8 p.m. last year. Wexler was fined $250 and ordered to attend a six-week course titled “Moderation in Merriment.”
Reached for comment, Wexler said he has already begun planning next year. “They can take my chocolate,” he said, watching the van pull away. “But they can’t take my membership card.”
The Authority confirmed it has flagged his membership card.
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