Not all Utahns are as enthusiastic. Piotr and Kasia Rzepecki moved to Salt Lake City from Poland. Although they think the holiday is fun, they will not be celebrating.

"It's not ours," Kasia said. Added Piotr, "It's new to us, and it's not our tradition."

The national survey asked: "Do you think Halloween is generally a good, wholesome activity for children, or do you think it is not good or wholesome for kids?" Seventy-three percent said they approve of the children's festival, 20 percent object to Halloween and 7 percent were undecided.

People who describe themselves as "very conservative" were three times more likely to disapprove of Halloween than were self-described "very liberal" folk. Evangelical Protestants were twice as likely as Catholics to dislike the festival.

But there are other factors besides religion that makes Halloween unpopular. Half of the black people in the survey said they don't think Halloween is a good activity for children.

"Black people are more likely to live in urban places where it really isn't a good idea to let your children wander the streets alone at night," Lachmann said.

An average of only 18 children were received last Halloween by households in rural areas while suburban households averaged 33 trick-or-treaters.

Halloween is particularly popular among the other minorities in the poll. Asians and Hispanics accepted a larger number of trick-or-treaters last year than did non-Hispanic whites.

"Halloween is wildly popular in Japan, where they have a fascination with all things American," said Paoletti. "And is just happens that Hispanics at this same time of the year have their ancient Day of the Dead festival."

The survey was conducted by telephone from Oct. 9-23 at the Scripps Center in a project sponsored by Scripps Howard News Service and the E.W. Scripps School of Journalism at Ohio University.

The poll has a margin of error of plus 4 percentage points.