The upscale, mostly white Long Beach neighborhood of Bixby Knolls has, over 50 years, built a reputation for going all-out with Halloween candy and decorations: haunted graveyards and mazes rigged with spooky lights and sound effects.
This year, however, a few pumpkins and scarecrows are about all there is to see along Linden Avenue, the area's most popular lane for trick-or-treaters, where three white women were severely beaten by a mob of black youths last Halloween night.
After a series of homeowners meetings, the residents of Bixby Knolls -- where the median age is 36 and the average household income is $93,000 -- have agreed to scale down their displays and, as one resident put it, "go dark on Halloween."
In addition, the Long Beach Police Department will be out in force with patrol cars, gang enforcement units and plainclothes auto theft teams. Girl Scout troops will post signs on street corners with a message for outsiders: "Trick-or-Treating is for kids: 5 p.m. to 7:30 p.m."
In the meantime, many residents have been donating money normally set aside for fancy treats and life-size plastic ghouls and skeletons to a nearby church, which presents an annual Halloween festival.
An 8 1/2 -by-11-inch paper taped on the window of a house near where the attack occurred simply says, "Boo!"
The aim of the low-key attitude is to get beyond the tensions, complex emotions and relentless negative attention the incident brought to Long Beach -- a port city of 475,000 people that has long touted its diversity in marketing campaigns and economic development brochures -- and to avoid another violent confrontation.
Even before last year's incident, the neighborhood had grown wary of older and often rude trick-or-treaters in street clothes from outside the area.
"Because of our reputation for extravagant haunts and king-sized candy bars, we got too big and could no longer control the neighborhood," said Long Beach City Councilwoman Rae Gabelich, whose district includes Bixby Knolls. "Now, we're trying to bring the holiday back to the way it used to be, for children."
With that goal in mind, police Cmdr. Scott Robertson said he had advised residents to "scale down to a pumpkin and a porch light, that's about it."
"Of course, two or three homeowners said, 'Damn it, we're going to do it anyway,' " he said. "We're telling them they may end up with thousands of trick-or-treaters they didn't anticipate, and a few problems."
