Each time Halloween night approaches, the mayors of Shibuya and Shinjuku, two areas of Tokyo particularly popular for business and entertainment, look at the calendar with trepidation. And not because they are worried about not having celebration programs ready for the night of the death. On the contrary.

What keeps them up at night is the possibility that their streets will be filled with costumed people who become louder and dirtier as their blood alcohol levels rise; This concern appears to have become even more urgent this year, as international tourism has climbed to record levels across the country.

Ready? for halloween. Halloween is news in Japan. Although not for the usual reasons. This Monday, the mayors of Shibuya and Shinjuku, two Tokyo wards, held a press conference to deliver a message that resonated with the Foreign Correspondents Club of Japan: They don’t want their streets to be filled with eager visitors come October 31. to celebrate the night of the dead with a few drinks. To clarify, both councilors posed with signs declaring that drinking on the street is prohibited.

What language were the signs in? Japanese… and English, proof that the message isn’t just aimed at the local population. Additionally, similar posters will be hung in Shinjuku and messages will be broadcast on giant screens installed in the district. In Shibuya, they decided to provide automatic translators directly to the guards assigned to patrol on Halloween.

Alcohol+street, bad idea. Mayors were not satisfied with posing with banners. It also decided to take a step at the regulatory level. Shibuya was the first to do so in 2019, before the health crisis, when it decided to ban alcohol consumption on certain streets and times of the year, such as Halloween or New Year’s festivities. Now he has decided to go one step further and revise his local ordinance to extend the veto to the entire year and cover a larger area of ​​the neighborhood.

Kyodo News notes that the change came into force at the beginning of this month, and the ban was extended to the time period between six in the afternoon and five in the morning in areas near JR and Keio Shibuya stations. In the Shinjuku case, it was decided to ban street alcohol consumption during the afternoon and evening of October 31. The restriction will start at five o’clock and last for 12 hours.

Will there be more precautions? Yes, in Shinjuku, authorities have asked stores not to sell alcohol around the station and in the Kabukicho area during Halloween night, and a hundred security guards will be tasked with policing the busiest streets. As if this were not enough, signs warning of the ban will be hung. They will even provide their agencies with automatic translators so that they can understand each other with foreign tourists in Shuibuya.

Add force. It is no coincidence that both mayors decided to join forces. They govern two neighboring regions, so what one does affects the other. Especially when it comes to limiting the festivity. This became clear last year when Shibuya took the lead and took measures at its own risk to deter those considering celebrating Halloween on its streets.

The campaign was a huge success. Around 15,000 people are estimated to have gathered around Shibuya station, far from the expected 60,000. The problem was that most of these people went to the next area, Shinjuku, which found itself with a large number of visitors in the “small area” of the entertainment area. The result, as the councilor reminded the press this Monday, was “really troublesome crowds”.

“Damage, noise and garbage”. It may seem like an exaggeration, but mayors insist crowds of people drinking on the streets on Halloween night are causing a disturbance. And many. “Drinking on the street has damaged the environment, including loud noise and garbage,” laments Shibuya leader Ken Hasebe. His Shinjuku counterpart, Kenichi Yoshizumi, adds that “accidents and fights” occur when people gather to get drunk.

“If you want to drink alcohol, do it in bars or restaurants, respecting the rules,” shouts the local leader. South China Morning Post He remembers that six years ago, in the middle of the celebration, a group of teenagers overturned a truck.

Foreign tourism under the spotlight. Not only are foreign visitors coming to Shinjuku and Sibuya to celebrate Halloween, but the mayors’ complaints are also linked to another reality of Japan: the boom in international tourism that the country is experiencing, which has broken its own records in the past few months. largely due to the country’s popularity, the end of the epidemic, and the weakening of the yen. The fact that the campaign was launched through the Reporters Club and the posters were published in English gives a clue as to who the campaign targets.

Major Japanese media such as Nikkei, Kyodo News, Asashi or Japan Times, when covering the call for orders by the mayors of Shibuya and Shinjuku, more or less explicitly link it to the increase in tourism and the influx of foreign visitors. Yoshihiro Sataki of Josai International University explains to Asahi that Tokyo’s Halooween has become particularly popular due to the festive and carefree tone the party adopts. In addition, the image that they can drink on the streets without any problems is widespread among tourists.

When we look at the central government. Although it was the Shibuya and Shinjuku districts that took action, those responsible demanded that the central government and the Tokyo metropolis take stricter measures. Ultimately, the steps councilors take may be more or less effective, as Shibuya demonstrated last year, but they are quite limited in scope.

Local regulations lack mechanisms that allow for their truly effective implementation, and if there is one thing that will become clear in 2023, it is that measures taken in one region in isolation can be counterproductive for another in the same city. Of course, not everyone sees Halloween the same way. Toshima is preparing a Halloween Cosplay Festival that attracted thousands of people last year.

Pictures | Dick Thomas Johnson (Flickr) 1 and 2

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