WTF is wrong with people?

By Lisa Respers France, CNN
updated 2:45 PM EST, Wed December 3, 2014

(CNN) -- One mall Santa might be getting some coal in his stocking this year.

Last week, Santa Claus and a helper elf from The Shops at Mission Viejo in California turned away a 7-year-old girl with autism and her service dog, a pit bull named Pup-Cake.

According to the Orange County Register, Abcde Santos, who pronounces her first name "ab-suh-dee," and Pup-Cake stood in line for 30 minutes to meet with the unnamed mall Santa. But he declined to meet the girl because he feared the 5-year-old pit bull.

"After the Santos family offered to remove the dog from the area, the building, Santa still refused to see the child," Julie Miller, a family friend who runs a Facebook page dedicated to Pup-Cake and service animals, told the Register.

"Autism is accompanied by many sensory issues, included self-harm behaviors and feeling overwhelmed at times by lights, sounds, especially when waiting," according to the dog's Facebook page. "Pup-cake the service dog's job is to intervene in those moments."

Word of the diss led to a viral campaign, #savePupcakesChristmas, with sympathizers angered over the incident posting comments on the Facebook page for The Shops at Mission Viejo.

The mall posted 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."

It later shared a note from Miller about how property management and the mall had moved swiftly to correct the Bad Santa problem. The mall added, "We look forward to welcoming back the Santos family and Pup-Cake for a special Santa experience."

A representative for the Noerr Programs, which provided the Santa and helper, said the pair have been transferred and given other duties.

"For 26 years, The Noerr Programs has devoted itself to sharing the heart of Santa through the creation of magical Christmas experiences for all children and their families," CEO Judy Noerr said in a statement. "The entire team at The Noerr Programs sincerely apologizes for any distress caused by this situation, and truly regrets the incident. We have reached out to the girl's family, in an effort to extend a private Santa visit with complimentary photos of both the child and her service dog."

The Santos family has declined to be interviewed. Miller told the paper the family is pleased with the decision to replace the Santa and hopes it will lead to better awareness.

"They want people to get educated not about autism or pit bulls, but about the disabilities act so that little girls like Abcde won't go and see Santa and end up crying," she said.

http://www.cnn.com/2014/12/03/living/ma ... index.html?

People are idiots! At least the mall is making special arrangements.

I think a lot of the big malls already have that in place. It's a great idea!

I'm a bit wary of pit bull's as well.

But I've only ever come into contact with one on an extended basis, and it was a vicious bastard. But his owner seemed to enjoy that, so maybe that was the cause. They were originally breed as fighting dogs after all....

And some people are just scared of dogs.

But the santa did seem to massively over-react.

All vicious dogs scare me, lol.

I once walked a couple blocks to a 7-11 very early in the morning. On the way back I was confronted by 3 large Rotties. Growling with bared teeth, barking and seeming to want to come at me. I just stopped dead in my tracks. I didn't even breathe for a few moments, ha! When I appeared to be non-threatening, they turned around and trotted off. Whew!

Good reason to be scared Rose. I've lived with dogs most of my life and usually don't have trouble with them, but some people seem to train/encourage them to be scary. The problem can really get worse if you run from them, so you did the right thing.

This story doesn't make tons of sense to me. The girl and the dog waited in line 30 minutes to see Santa. No one was worried the dog may attack other kids in line. Time to see Santa, Santa's scared. Scared even if Pupcake is taken outside???? If this were a wild pit on the street I would be apprehensive, but the pit I know and love used to be afraid of my cat. I had to walk with Buddy, the pit, to pass my 8 pound cat. Pupcake was trained to be a service dog, not a fighting dog.

Found on FB:

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.

And thank you to all of those who shared holiday cheers

It seems like the world just gets crazier and crazier the older I get. Most people, even those who love their pits are aware that some people are scared of pit bulls and even though Pup cake (love the name!) was supposedly a service dog, I think there is the possibility the parents had another agenda besides the child's visit with Santa