MILLBROOK COUNTY — The Millbrook Regional Airport Baggage Committee announced Monday the confiscation of 200 pounds of leftover Halloween candy from passenger carry-on luggage over the weekend, in what officials are calling the largest “sugar smuggling” interdiction in the airport’s history.
“Two hundred pounds,” said committee chair Frank Delacroix, the airport’s Director of Confectionery Contraband. “That is not a snack. That is not ‘candy for the flight.’ That is a distribution operation with a boarding pass.”
The seizures began Friday when screeners flagged a carry-on containing 40 pounds of fun-size bars “arranged with a organizational precision that suggested either a very dedicated grandmother or a very casual criminal enterprise.” By Sunday, officers had intercepted eleven more passengers, including one traveler whose entire roller bag — clothing included — had been replaced with miniature chocolate bars “down to the toiletry kit, which contained a single toothbrush and approximately 300 Tootsie Rolls.”
Committee officials stressed that candy is not prohibited by aviation security rules. “Candy is perfectly legal,” Delacroix said. “What is not legal — or rather, what is not permitted under the committee’s charter — is transporting confectionery in quantities that suggest commercial intent without filing a Sweet Transport Declaration, Form ST-9. None of these travelers filed the form. Several of them asked what the form was. That is how we know the system works.”
Questioned travelers offered consistent explanations: the candy was “leftover,” it was “for the grandkids,” and in one memorable exchange, “a personal challenge I set for myself on November first.” The committee found the explanations “charming and insufficient.”
The confiscated candy — inventoried, weighed, and stored in the committee’s climate-controlled evidence locker — will be transferred to the county’s Leftover Candy Economic Stabilization Task Force, whose commissioner, Gerald Mims, called the seizure “a windfall for the strategic reserve” and “proof that our surplus tracking was, if anything, conservative.”
One traveler has filed an appeal, arguing her 35 pounds of candy corn constituted “a religious observance.” The committee has 30 days to rule. “We take all appeals seriously,” Delacroix said. “We also note, for the record, that nobody has ever claimed candy corn as a religious observance before, and the committee’s theologian — we have one on retainer, it’s a whole thing — is skeptical.”
Travelers are reminded that the Sweet Transport Declaration is available at the committee’s office, online, and “taped to the big sign by the escalators that everyone walks past.” Declarations must be filed 48 hours before departure. “Plan your sugar,” Delacroix said. “That is all we ask. Plan your sugar.”
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