No trick, dentist to buy back Halloween treats

Locust Grove dentist Linda King will buy pencils and pretzels to fill trick-or-treaters’ bags on Halloween night. But when candy corn-red licorice-peanut butter cup bliss strikes back with tantrums and stomach aches a few days later, she’ll pay up to take those sorts of sweets off kids’ (and their parents’) hands.

For the second year, King will buy back Halloween loot or the leftovers that never made it out of the house. She pays $1 for each pound of wrapped sweets, then sends the goodies to military members stationed overseas through Operation Gratitude, a care-package organization online at www.opgratitude.com. She’s buying back candy from 3-5 p.m. Nov. 3, but says she’ll accept it any time that day.

Last year, she bought about 60 pounds of candy from trick-or-treaters and sneaky parents, she says. (Some parents opted not to take the cash — they just wanted all the sugar to mysteriously disappear.) This year, King might offer up other goodies to encourage the giving spirit, like toothbrushes, cavity-fighting lollipops and coupons from local restaurants.

“Nobody’s really going to miss anything,” King says. “Sometimes, you’re just eating candy because it’s there. We thought, ‘How can we help everybody? How we can help different parents that are sitting there with two tons of candy that sits around till Christmas, Easter?’”

King started her buyback in Locust Grove, just south of McDonough, last year, after she heard about Wisconsin dentist Dr. Chris Kammer’s program. Kammer began buying back candy three years ago and talked up the program among friends and professional groups. This time of year, he hears every day from 10 to 20 dentists looking for details about how it works, said Scott Green, the marketing director for Kammer’s practice.

Kammer’s practice collected about 650 pounds of candy from 200 kids last year. About 300 dentists have signed up for the buyback newsletter, Green said, and so far, 100 have confirmed that they’ll be buying back.

If sugar-lovers must hold on to some of their treats, King recommends they keep chocolate. It melts away in the mouth, reducing the time teeth are exposed to sugar and acids. Plus, it doesn’t tend to last long.

“My husband will buy some peanut butter cups,” King admits. “I think half of them wind up in his pockets.”