After nearly 60 years, Disney to let theme-park workers grow beards
By Jason Garcia, Orlando Sentinel
12:18 PM CST, January 23, 2012
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 goes into 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.
It was one of two notable changes Disney is making to "The Disney Look" the clean-cut, all-American appearance that Walt Disney himself demanded of his theme-park employees from the day his original theme park,
Disneyland, opened in 1955.
The other change: Casual Fridays, though only for employees who work in non-costumed jobs and who don't interact with theme-park visitors.
Disney periodically updates its strict appearance policies, typically after studying similar guidelines at other theme parks and Fortune 500 companies. The last major change occurred two years ago, when the company finally allowed female workers to forego wearing panty hose when wearing skirts a rule that was particularly uncomfortable for women working outside on steamy summer days in Central Florida.
The company began inching back from its ban on facial hair in 2000, when it finally decided to allow moustaches.
jrgarcia@tribune.com or 407-420-5414
