News & Politics

Yes, Candy Chutes Are a Thing This Pandemic Halloween

The Halloween hack comes amidst the CDC designating traditional trick-or-treating as higher risk.

A candy chute in Northern Virginia. Photograph by Jenny Rosenberg.
Coronavirus 2020

About Coronavirus 2020

Washingtonian is keeping you up to date on the coronavirus around DC.

It looks like the MVP of this pandemic Halloween may be…the candy chute.

After news that the Centers for Disease Control designated traditional, door-to-door trick-or-treating as higher risk, parents and Halloween candy enthusiasts have been on the look for a socially distant Plan B.

Enter the candy chute. It’s exactly as it sounds: A tube attached to the front of one’s house so candy can be slid down to trick-or-treaters contact-free. The Washington Post recently profiled an Ohio man whose makeshift chute went viral online, but it also seems these Covid-friendly candy dispensers have made their way to DC.

Photographer Laurie Collins recently posted videos of chutes in Woodley Park, and candy-dispensing pipes have also been spotted in Northern Virginia. Emails forwarded from a Petworth neighborhood list serve indicate that residents will have their own chutes on display this year. And for those looking for guidance creating their own spooky tubes, WTOP reporter Neal Augenstein recently wrote a tutorial.

We may not be able to go on hayrides or freak ourselves out in haunted houses this year, but we can have mini Snickers projected at our faces, and that seems like enough for 2020.

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Mimi Montgomery Washingtonian
Home & Features Editor

Mimi Montgomery joined Washingtonian in 2018. She’s written for The Washington Post, Garden & Gun, Outside Magazine, Washington City Paper, DCist, and PoPVille. Originally from North Carolina, she now lives in Del Ray.