Bad Santa: Mall Santa Fired For Turning Away Autistic Child, Service Dog

A mall Santa and his elf at The Shops at Mission Viejo in California were very naughty when they turned away an autistic seven-year-old and her service dog, Pup-Cake.
Dec. 3, 2014
2 min read
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A bad Santa39s claim that a little girl39s service dog posed an occupational hazard was overruled by his employers and a viral campaign to savePupcakesChristmas
A bad Santa's claim that a little girl's service dog posed an occupational hazard was overruled by his employers and a viral campaign to #savePupcakesChristmas.

Fear of dog bites might be an occupational hazard for mail carriers, but a mall Santa?

A mall Santa and his elf turned away a seven-year-old autistic girl and her service dog, Pup-Cake, claiming they were afraid of the 5-year-old dog. Abcde Santos and Pup-Cake stood in line for 30 minutes so that she could tell Santa what she wanted for Christmas, only to be told that Santa would not see her because "those dogs eat people."

Her family offered to take Pup-Cake outside, but the Santa working at The Shops at Mission Viejo in California turned into a Scrooge and refused to see the little girl, with or without her dog.

A viral campaign, #savePupcakesChristmas, immediately sprang into action and put pressure on the Simon Property Group, which runs the mall.

Ehstoday Com Sites Ehstoday com Files Uploads 2014 11 Pup Cake
Abcde Santos and her service dog, Pup-Cake

The Simon Property Group released a statement that said, "We share in your concerns regarding the situation today involving a Santa at The Shops at Mission Viejo. We do not condone the behavior displayed by Santa and have worked with our partners at Noerr, the company that hires our Santas, to replace this Santa with one that is more compassionate to our guests' needs."

A statement posted Pup-Cake's Facebook page said, "The Santos family and Pup-Cake the service dog would like to publicly commend Simon Property Group and the management team at The Shops at Mission Viejo mall for swiftly responding to our concerns. Along with Noerr who supplies the Santa and Elf who have handled the errant employee matters. The Santos family's goal is always equality education and their offer to provide American with disabilities act training still stands.

"Santa and the Elf have subsequently been fired. We are thankful that they reached out to us as soon as they learned of the incident and this was handled in a swift and appropriate manner."

About the Author

Sandy Smith

Sandy Smith

Sandy Smith is the former content director of EHS Today, and is currently the EHSQ content & community lead at Intelex Technologies Inc. She has written about occupational safety and health and environmental issues since 1990.

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