After nearly 60 years, Disney to let theme-park workers grow beards
After nearly 60 years, Mickey Mouse has decided to let his workers put their razors away.
The Walt Disney Co. announced Monday that it would let employees at its two U.S. theme-park resorts — including its more than 60,000 workers at Walt Disney World — grow beards or goatees.
The new policy, which takes effect Feb. 3, eliminates a facial-hair ban that has for decades been a source of grumbling among some of the company’s male theme-park workers.
That’s not to say Santa Claus can suddenly start working in the Magic Kingdom. Disney’s new policy restricts any facial hair to no more than a quarter of an inch in length. And the company says any chin whiskers “must create an overall neat, polished and professional look” and must be fully grown in and well-groomed.
It is one of two notable changes Disney is making to “The Disney Look” — the clean-cut, all-American appearance that Disney has demanded of its theme-park employees from the day its original theme park, Disneyland, opened in 1955. The rigid code was instituted by Walt Disney himself, who wanted to distinguish his theme park from the sleazy carnivals of the time.
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