Santa fired by mall for posting ‘dirty’ and ‘inappropriate’ pictures online

Gary Haupt, 69, now ‘crazy busy’ with booking requests and urges local community not to boycott mall in solidarity

(Gary Haupt/Facebook)

A shopping mall has fired its Santa Claus for posting allegedly “dirty” and “inappropriate” images of himself in the festive role.

Gary Haupt has dressed up as the Christmas icon for more than a decade, and in 2018 took a job at Cherry Lane mall in Penticton, Canada, “wanting to be the best Santa that community had seen”.

But returning in 2019, he received an email requesting he come in for a meeting at the manager’s office.

“That never happens,” the 69-year-old told Fox News. “It was clear to me that something was afoot.”

The mall bosses were responding to a complaint they had received from someone on a Facebook page about images taken several weeks prior, according to Mr Haupt.

“[The meeting] was very quick, no chit chat,” Mr Haupt, who is retired, told The Independent. “They were not there to talk or listen – no discussion, really. Just ‘sorry, you are terminated’.”

Two of the offending images appear to show Mr Haupt as Santa drinking from a hipflask and pretending to grab a woman’s breasts.

The lady in the latter image is his partner’s nail technician and comes to his home every three weeks or so, he said. Both women gave consent to the images, he has told news outlets.

“The one with the flask,” he said. “Her flask, her idea. We were having a laugh, in both cases. Having fun.”

He told The Independent the photos were taken both in his home and at a Christmas farmer’s market three weeks prior to his contract starting at the mall on 30 November – “not on mall property, not while under contract to the mall, not using [the] mall suit...I have my own”.

Mr Haupt then posted some of the images to his personal Facebook and to two local groups, and said that while a few people “were shocked or horrified, the overwhelming response was very positive”.

The Penticton resident said that while he had no objection to people making a complaint, the mall bosses had shown “a lack of leadership”, as the pictures were taken in his own time and outside of any obligation to them.

“They call the pictures dirty or inappropriate,” he told CTV News. “They’re none of those things. It’s just hard for me to swallow that part.”

But concerns were also raised during his first year at Cherry Lane shopping centre in the British Columbian town.

“Full disclosure,” he told The Independent. “Last year there had been three instances where women asked to have pictures. Two appearing to be spanked, and one appearing to spank.

“The mall admin[istration] voiced their concern and we (the photographer and Santa) agreed to no more of that.”

Despite the setback this year, Mr Haupt says the local community, which he describes as “so supportive”, is “pissed off” at the mall administration.

(Gary Haupt (Gary Haupt)

The Santa has received more than 200 messages of support on a popular Penticton Facebook page, according to The Toronto Sun, while, Mr Haupt says he is now "crazy busy" with new bookings in daycares, restaurants and markets.

“I am a great Santa,” he said. “Kids hanging upside down, kids doing all kinds of crazy stuff with Santa. I am not a quiet Santa. When I am around, people know it. I am alive, I laugh, I love this work.”

Mr Haupt, who especially enjoys working with children with special needs, urged citizens not to boycott the mall, representatives of which were not available for comment.

"I don't want people to boycott the mall. Those people, they are all paid minimum wage, they don't deserve to have their hours reduced because of this, that would be wrong," Haupt told the Vancouver Courier. "And I hope the new Santa has a great time, a really successful run."