Orlando - Disney World tells Santa look-alike to tone it down

First it was Tinkerbell (http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/florida/1354748-disney-world-asks-girl-15-change-out-tinker-bell-costume.html), now Santa...

Given the discussion that came about on the Tinkerbell thread, I'm not surprised, WDW sought to address Santa attracting so much attention. It does distract from the image Disney aims to project...and it was certainly no where near Christmas!

Any thoughts on if they could have handled it better? Should he have been happy with the park hopper tickets?

:)

NBC News: Humbug! Disney World tells Santa look-alike to tone it down (http://itineraries.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/07/25/12947983-humbug-disney-world-tells-santa-look-alike-to-tone-it-down?lite&__utma=14933801.1156842686.1342443172.1343385896.1 343385908.11&__utmb=14933801.1.10.1343385908&__utmc=14933801&__utmx=-&__utmz=14933801.1342443172.1.1.utmcsr=(direct)|utm ccn=(direct)|utmcmd=(none)|utmcct=/_news/2012/07/20/12850048-12-shot-dead-at-dark-knight-rises-screening-in-aurora-colorado&__utmv=14933801.|8=Earned%20By=msnbc%7Ctravel%7Cov erheadbin=1^12=Landing%20Content=Original=1^13=Lan ding%20Hostname=overheadbin.nbcnews.com=1^30=Visit %20Type%20to%20Content=Internal%20to%20Original=1&__utmk=188462632)

With his roly-poly body and bleached-white hair, mustache and beard, 52-year old Thomas Tolbert of Roswell, Ga., is a spitting image of Santa Claus.

In June, during a Father’s Day weekend trip to Disney World with relatives, theme-park officials pulled Tolbert aside and ordered him to stop signing autographs, posing for photographs, and dressing to look like Santa.

“I wasn’t wearing a red suit, a hat or black boots,” Tolbert told NBC News, “just khaki pants, red high-top sneakers with green laces and a billowy, specially-made shirt decorated with a collage of Santa Claus heads and sayings from ‘The Night before Christmas.'”
...
Walt Disney World Resort confirmed that it asked Tolbert to change his clothes and to stop interacting as Santa with other theme-park guests because “it was disruptive to our operations and confusing to our other guests, particularly children who asked to take photos with him.”

It's WDW property so they have a right to regulate clientele (within the law), but I wonder how WDW handles other "celebrities" who arrive unannounced and cause a stir?

There are plenty of Santa lookalikes out there. Some play it up (saw one the other day in a red convertible with vanity plates S CLAUS 7) and some don't. I saw one lookalike at Disneyland and pointed him out to my (then 4 y.o.) daughter; "look it's Santa, on vacation." He certainly wasn't calling any attention to himself or his unique resemblance, and I'm not the kind to ever ask a celebrity for a photo or autograph even if he was, but it was a special memory my daughter still cherishes.

I don't think they could have handled it much better or differently. The guy walks around wearing a shirt covered with a Santa collage, all while looking pretty much like Santa, and kids were walking up to him asking if he was Santa. It is disruptive to the atmosphere, and well, Disney likes absolute control over the behavior of their characters, including Santa (at the holidays). If this guy would have been a jerk and started cursing at people, well, it would have not looked very good from a child's point of view. And that's what they're concerned about.