ALTONA, MB
Local pumpkin farmer Ernie Wiebe, 53, is requiring customers to sign a waiver promising only to use his pumpkins to make pie.
“I don’t want to see my pumpkins turned into Jack O’Lanterns,” said Wiebe. “These are fine upstanding Mennonite pumpkins after all.”
Anyone caught using one of Wiebe’s pumpkins as a Halloween decoration, will have their pumpkin seized by Altona authorities.
“We’re sending the elders around to check,” said Wiebe. “It’s one thing to use a grocery store pumpkin as decoration, but our pumpkins better not show up on your front step with a candle in it this October.”
Wiebe has put the elders through weeks of training in order to identify one of his pumpkins.
“They’ll be knocking and knipsing many a pumpkin,” said Wiebe. “Although the best results come from the taste test.”
Altona customers have promised Wiebe there won’t be any violations of his rules, although customers from Morden were not willing to make the same assurances.