A recent WDW guest, Thomas Tolbert, was told to look less "Santa-ish" while on vacation with his family. The Atlanta-professional Santa was told his look was disruptive to park operations as children would approach him for autographs and photo ops. Park officials released an official statement that "the guest was asked to change his attire because it was disruptive to our operations and confusing to our other guests, particularly children who asked to take photos with him." While not asked directly to leave, park officials attempted to work with the lookalike for a less "seasonal" look.
While WDW has a policy prohibiting adults from appearing similar to Disney owned characters, this is the first instance I have read in which a park guest was asked to change his appearance for looking like a non-Disney character. The official policy makes sense for a variety of reasons including guest satisfaction/ quality control, guest safety, and control over Disney owned intellectual property. Disney's action here, however, extend the original policy into a muddled shade of grey.
Every park ticket operates as a contract between WDW and guests, the terms of which Disney is entitled to alter to maximize park revenue and guest enjoyment. This freedom of contract extents to controlling the manner in which guests can dress and appear in the park (WDW has also been known to requests guests to hide lewd images or words on clothing). While Disney certainly does not own any intellectual property rights to Santa (Santa Mickey aside), WDW does have compelling reasons to manage customer satisfaction and control guest safety.
Such restrictions do, however, put a small class of persons vacationing at WDW such as Mr. Tolbert in a bind as his livelihood depends on his festive image. Mr. Tolbert recommended a possible solution of treating professional lookalikes like celebrities. While somewhat sensible, this would incentivize clever park guests to dress like non-Disney figures for purposes of obtaining VIP treatment (I would personally go as Young Lincoln). Ultimately, WDW will continue to default on the side of strongly encouraging lookalikes to tone down their image while offering park perks as compensation (park merchandise, tickets, etc.). My only hope is that Mr. Tolbert took Disney's reaction as a compliment to the effectiveness of his appearance, giving him a strong boost of elf-esteem!
Links:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2178239/Man-asked-look-like-Santa-Disney-park-officials-family-vacation.html
http://www.wtsp.com/news/florida/article/265251/19/Disney-World-tells-man-to-be-less-Santa-ish
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