Panama Mayor William Schneider reported during the November board meeting about an incident that took place on Halloween night. P-J photo by Sara Holthouse

PANAMA — Halloween night in the village of Panama involved both tricks and treats this year.

Mayor William Schneider reported during the November meeting being called to an incident at all four corners of the village where some high school aged kids had chosen to deposit both piles of hay and smashed pumpkins.

“Trick-or-treat was great, it was a beautiful night,” Schneider said. “However, we did have shenanigans that took place in the village with large amounts of pumpkins and hay. … They broke hay bales open and piled them at the four corners.”

Schneider said he was not informed of the incident until about 45 minutes after it happened, adding that county sheriff’s deputies were dispatched to the village because of it at around 9:30 p.m. The sheriffs called Highway Superintendent Brian Manwaring, who came with some of his crew and hand-shoveled it all into trucks, taking three or four truck loads of stuff out. Schneider thanked the crew for their work in dealing with the mess.

Schneider added he had reports as well that an adult was seen handing out truck loads of things to these kids, but that was the worst of the issues for the night and it was taken care of by the highway crew.

Besides the incident, the rest of the night Schneider and the village board thought went well, with a lot of kids out that night in costumes.

“It was full,” Schneider said. “It was nice to see. It was like an old-style small town America Halloween. It was nice to see people out.”

Village Treasurer Larissa Enlow said she was impressed at the amount of high schoolers that were out and dressed up in costumes, noting that they actually put in effort where usually they just come around with a bag. Schneider added that the high school kids he saw going around in costumes were not involved in the incident.