Tokyo Mayors Ask People to Follow Rules during Halloween

Tokyo, Oct. 7 (Jiji Press)--The mayors of two wards in central Tokyo on Monday called for people to follow rules during the Halloween season.

The Shibuya and Shinjuku wards have each set an ordinance to prohibit drinking on the streets in downtown areas during the Halloween period, after street drinking by young people and foreign visitors to Japan became a problem.

Speaking at a press conference at the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Japan in Tokyo, Shibuya Ward Mayor Ken Hasebe disclosed a plan to urge the Japanese government and the Tokyo metropolitan government to strengthen measures against overtourism, or the negative impact of an influx of tourists on the daily lives of local residents. “We’ll call on people to stop annoying acts,” Shinjuku Ward Mayor Kenichi Yoshizumi told the same press conference.

In Shibuya Ward, young people dressed up for Halloween were repeatedly drunk and making noise around Shibuya Station, prompting the ward to enact in 2019 an ordinance banning drinking on the streets during certain times of the year, including the Halloween season.

After Japan downgraded COVID-19 to a lower-risk category under the infectious disease control law in May 2023, movement restrictions were removed and drinking in public by foreign visitors to the country and others became normal. The Shibuya Ward ordinance was revised in June this year to ban drinking on the streets throughout the year, and this came into effect Tuesday.

[Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]