Canada West Kootenay (British Columbia),
Vancouver Island,
Thunder Bay (Ontario), and
Winnipeg also called it "Gate Night"; in English-speaking
Quebec it is known as "Mat Night" in reference to a tradition of stealing front door mats. "Devil's Night" is another common name in Canada. It is known in
Welsh as
Noson Ddrygioni and in
Scottish Gaelic as
Oidhche nan Cleas. Mischief Nights are sometimes also held on
May Day Eve, as part of 'Bringing in the May.' It was historically common for that night to involve playing pranks on neighbours, gathering flowers and greenery for May morning, making loud noise with gunfire or horns, and having sex. In some areas of Yorkshire, it is extremely popular among 13-year-olds, as they believe it to be a sort of coming-of-age ceremony. In
Liverpool and parts of the surrounding
region, It is typically celebrated on 30 October, Mischief Night is often shortened to "
Mizzy Night". Locally it has a reputation of causing anti-social and disruptive behaviour as well as vandalism in the area. In 2023 the night was described as being like a 'Warzone'.
United States In most of
New Jersey, and other regions of the United States, including
New Orleans,
Philadelphia, the
Lehigh Valley region of eastern
Pennsylvania,
Delaware, parts of
New York state, and
Connecticut, it is referred to as "Mischief Night". In the
Great Lakes region,
Michigan, western
New York, and western
Pennsylvania it is known as ''
Devil's Night. Cabbage Night'' is also used in this area as it is the term used in
Vermont,
Connecticut,
Bergen County (New Jersey),
Upstate New York,
Northern Kentucky,
Newport (Rhode Island) and
Western Massachusetts.
Baltimore (
Maryland) traditionally refers the night as
"Moving Night" due to the custom of exchanging or stealing porch furniture and other outside items. It is known as "Gate Night" in
Bay City (Michigan),
Rockland County (New York),
North Dakota and
South Dakota. In
Detroit, which was particularly affected by Devil's Night arson and vandalism throughout the 1980s, many citizens took it upon themselves to patrol the streets to deter arson and other crimes. Started in 1997 as an initiative to combat the legacy of Devil's Night, "Angels' Night" usually ran October 29 through October 31 with up to 40,000 volunteers on patrol, around the time most
Halloween festivities were taking place. However, official city support for Angels' Night patrolling was discontinued in 2018 after arson had declined significantly.
Detroit Devil's Night, especially from the late 1960s to the 1990s, involved widespread serious
vandalism and
arson in the Detroit area. Devil's Night made its way to Detroit in the 1930s and 1940s. Traditionally, city youths engaged in a night of mischievous or petty criminal behavior, usually consisting of minor pranks or acts of mild
vandalism (such as
egging, soaping or waxing windows and doors, leaving rotten vegetables or flaming bags of canine feces on stoops, or
toilet papering trees and shrubs) which caused little or no property damage. By the 1970s, the concept of Devil's Night as a phenomenon of a night of mischief and vandalism had spread, in a limited way, to cities around the state of Michigan, around the Midwest, and a few other cities around the country. However, in Detroit in the early 1970s, the vandalism escalated to more destructive acts such as
arson. This primarily took place in the
inner city, but surrounding suburbs were often affected as well. The crimes became more destructive in Detroit's inner-city neighborhoods, and included hundreds of acts of arson and vandalism every year. The destruction was worst in the mid- to late-1980s, with more than 800 fires set in 1984, and a number in the hundreds for each subsequent year until 2011. The damage was exacerbated by the severe population decline and widespread abandonment of buildings that occurred in Detroit during the 1970s and 1980s. Devil's Night arson in Detroit had not declined by the early 1990s. After a brutal Devil's Night in 1994, mayor
Dennis Archer promised city residents arson would not be tolerated. In 1995, Detroit city officials organized and established Angels' Night on and around October 29–31. Each year as many as 50,000 volunteers gather to patrol neighborhoods in the city. Many volunteers kept a high profile, patrolling neighborhoods with magnetic-mount flashing
amber beacons on their personal vehicles, along with communicating with command centers via
CB radios or by
cellular phones to report any suspicious activity. Incidences of arson and other crimes declined, a success largely attributed to the Angels' Night volunteers. The drop in reported fires for the year 2008 was credited to the Angels' Night program. That same year, 35,000 signed up to volunteer in the city, according to Daniel Cherrin, spokesperson for Detroit Mayor
Ken Cockrel Jr. As a result of the efforts, the number of fires decreased to near-ordinary levels in the first decade of the 21st century. In 2010, the number of reported fires increased to 169, a 42 percent increase compared to the previous year. However, subsequent years saw the totals again decline to the low 90s for the three-day period. This average of about 32 fires per day is somewhat higher than the expected 26 fires per day through the year. 2015 saw 52 fires recorded and only 24 considered possibly arson. 2017 saw the lowest recorded number of fires with only 21 fires recorded. That year, on November 1, Mayor
Mike Duggan announced that the city would end the Angels' Night patrols, based on recommendations from Fire Chief Eric Jones and Police Chief
James Craig. ==Modern practice in the United States==