The Star crunched the numbers and uncovered some fascinating details about Halloween in Toronto — including which neighbourhood tops the list for the best trick-or-treating!
"Your neighbourhood is the best at Halloween. Your street has an army of 12-foot Home Depot skeletons with those creepy blinking eyes. Gary next door has a fog machine! Reports of full-sized KitKat bars travel by text.Problem is — Toronto has a lot of Halloween heavy-hitters — and if the Blue Jays run has taught us anything, we’re a city of homers. So we went on a quest for objectivity. What might the data reveal? Halloween enthusiasts helped us come up with the metrics to uncover the ideal trick-or-treating experience.
For an efficient, fun night with a solid candy haul, you need a high density of single family homes, a high ratio of children and a track record of pedestrian safety. In a city where not everyone celebrates, decorations and spooky vibes are crucial indicators of participation. We analyzed census and safety data and quantified any vibe we could: What was a neighbourhood’s reputation for trick or treating online? What grocery store locations saw the highest Halloween candy sales? What areas of the city are scouring online flyers for Halloween treats and decor? What parts have street closures for Oct. 31 parties?
We ran the numbers to rank Toronto’s 158 neighbourhoods — and as we count down to No. 1, we’ve highlighted a few we found interesting. Our data isn’t perfect — but it reveals some fascinating details about Halloween in Toronto — and a geographic dominance that might prove controversial.
Let us know what you think — and tell us about your favourite neighbourhood in the comments.
Started near the Bottom: Bridle Path-Sunnybrook-York Mills (114)
Most of the neighbourhoods at the bottom of our ranking have low front door density — either because they’re condo heavy, or, like the Bridle Path, they simply have more sprawl. This is one of the city’s wealthiest enclaves — but it scores very low for kid density — and high on locked front gates. Back in 2009, the Star’s Rosie Dimanno took her niece and nephew here and returned with “one measly chocolate mint wafer.” But what about Drake? His management did not respond. We’re not saying you shouldn’t try. But if you’re someone who wonders whether a surplus of income translates into full-sized Mars bars, our data shows you’re better to try your luck in Rosedale-Moore Park (60). It’s denser than the Bridle Path, with slightly more kids — and it scores bonus points for vibes (large spiders have been known to adorn historic mansions) and a Halloween-themed street closure.
Scarborough spectacle: Malvern East (70)
The top ranking Scarborough neighbourhood is Birchcliffe-Cliffside (22) but a pair of townhomes north of Highway 401 made Malvern East stand out too. Nighthawk McKenzie and his wife moved to Brenyon Way in 2010. As longtime apartment dwellers — they were excited to make good use of the front yard and joined forces with Ken and Susan Patterson next door that first Halloween. From then, each year was more elaborate, with smoke machines, werewolves, gravestones, and skeletons posed in various scenes. (Last year they were camping.) On Halloween night, McKenzie estimates 600 to 800 kids show up, along with parents whistling at the imagined hydro costs. “The power isn’t the problem,” he says. “It’s the candy.” This year, he picked up close to 3,000 treats on sale at Costco. Rising costs hurt, but they can’t stop now. Neighbour Ken Patterson died in 2021, but his wife Susan continues in his memory. The trio don’t want to let the local children down. People come from across the city, and it’s become a generational touchstone as the kids from 15 years ago now bring their own children. Brenyon Way has a lot of backyards facing the road — so you might not find the same efficiency as other neighbourhoods — but it seems a fair sacrifice for the show.
Crowd-surfing in the old town: Cabbagetown South St. James Town (52), North St. James Town (13)
In 2016, Danli thought 400 pieces of candy would be enough. It was her first Cabbagetown Halloween, and even though her husband told her to expect throngs of children, she thought the one candy policy seemed a bit strict, and couldn’t resist giving handfuls. Sure enough, they ran out around 7:30 p.m. That’s because the spookily decorated Victorian semis are a Halloween magnet — with reports of 800 to 1,000 kids on some streets. Many children come from adjacent high-rise heavy neighbourhoods, including North St. James Town — one of the most kid-dense parts of the city. The two neighbourhoods combine for a joyful, chaotic spectacle every Oct. 31. Some locals say it’s a two-person job to hand out the candy — but they look forward to it every year; the kids are unfailingly polite. If crowds aren’t your thing, it may be overstimulating. In the local Facebook group, one mom said she prefers the nearby Esplanade: Her kids get way more treats since “houses don’t have to ration.”
Shut out of the Top 10: The Beaches (11)
Though the number of trick or treaters may have declined as the Beaches population ages, it remains a classic neighbourhood that still delivers on Halloween.
When Cindy Cass moved to her row house near Lake Ontario a decade ago, there were 400 trick or treaters a year. Kids like homes close together, she says — and the Pleasantville neighbourhood built on the site of the former Woodbine race track delivers. In recent years, the count has slowed, but she still sees a minimum of 200 kids. There is greater housing and kid density north of here, but the Beaches remains a classic, helped by a few bonus points in our analysis. Cass is doing her part: She’s got five boxes of chips, backup candy because the chips are proving irresistible, a front yard garden stocked with ghosts, witches and spiders, and on a recent visit, a bag of inflatables that was just waiting for a power cord to arrive from Amazon.
Best in the west: Runnymede-Bloor West Village (7)
On Halloween night, the sheer volume of kids on the sidewalks always reminds Angela Macdonald of a fire drill. When she moved to Bloor West Village from Vancouver, she was pleasantly surprised by the Halloween fervour. (Now as a director of the local BIA, she helps stoke it.) The elaborate decorations begin in September and intensify as the crunchy leaves pool amid the homes north of Bloor. Other notable west end spots include Roncesvalles (12) High Park North (19) and Oakwood Village (15). Oakwood Village has the kind of variance that’s typical. Some streets see 300 to 400 kids, others have 30. A little intel from the local Facebook group: Some homes on lower volume streets have been known to reward seekers with big chocolate bars. Julie Coelho Vasile likes to buy 20 or so to mix in with the smaller bulk candies. “We love being the big candy bar house, and it brings in more kids so we love that too!!!”
The Beast in the East: Greenwood-Coxwell (1)
This sliver of the east end is jam-packed with spookily decorated semis and young families. The east end’s dominance in our Top 5 is a reflection of its historic reliance on the semi-detached home to shelter the workers who flocked here in the early 20th century, when these were booming streetcar suburbs. It also helps that the east end is an epicentre for Halloween candy sales for the Loblaw chain. Halloween night is relaxed and efficient: adults on porches, children everywhere, thanks to above average kid density. The pedestrian safety scores are among the highest in the city. As Andrew Hahn walks his dog Rudy in third place Woodbine corridor a couple weeks before Halloween, they pass witches hats floating on front porches, minimalist bats arranged on a front door, and cobwebs so large they could trap an entire youth sports team. When he says it all looks a bit “sparse,” he is not being sarcastic. That’s how you know you’re in the land of champions.
