PEZ Easter Egg Hunt Called Off After Parents Steal Prizes

When PEZ decided to throw an Easter egg hunt for the local children and family, things got out of hand when parents rushed the field and grabbed anything they could get their hands on.

PEZ EASTER EGG HUNT CALLED OFF

PEZ general manager Shawn Peterson told CBS affiliate WFSB that the candy company hid more than 9,000 eggs Saturday on three separate fields at the PEZ visitor center in Orange, Connecticut. The candy company planned for different age groups to start at different times for it to be fair.

But parents decided to ignore the rules and rush the field instead. Nicole Welch told WFSB that those parents “bum-rushed” the area, leaving her 4-year-old son “traumatized” and “hysterically crying.”

PEZ has confirmed that the event has always been free so they were gearing up for a large crowd but “the number of families that came out to participate far exceeded anything we could have possibly planned for.”

“Unfortunately people chose to enter the first field prior to anyone from PEZ staff starting the activity,” the company said in a statement to WFSB. “The crowd moved to the 2nd field, waited for only a couple of minutes and proceeded to rush the field without being directed to do so and before the posted start time. The crowd then immediately moved to the 3rd field and took over and removed everything well before the activity was to even start.”