'Strip Club' Santa Display Is Back Despite Angry Shoppers

EDISON, NJ — A year ago, the head of a major mall chain with locations across the country admitted that a new Christmas display was an ill-conceived "mistake" that "we had to correct."

Translated from the carefully crafted corporate speak, he essentially acknowledged that no self-respecting elf would have ever come up with such a dismal presentation, which detractors complained looked like a strip club.

The chain's Menlo Park Mall in New Jersey, though, has rolled out a very similar display, which features a whole lot of neon and not much Christmas.

Back in front of the masses since mid-October at Menlo Park Mall in Edison is a display that features Santa Claus sitting on a tall, red sofa between futuristic-looking pedestals that light up and change colors. All that's missing is some pulsing music and a pole or two (and we aren't talking about the North one) to complete the gentleman's club look.

Shoppers last year complained about the display, so the mall threw in a few Christmas trees to add to the spirit. The customers were not impressed.

And New Jersey wasn’t the only place where the owners of the mall have had trouble with their displays.

At SouthPark Mall in Charlotte, North Carolina, a similar display was replaced entirely. That's when Simon Malls President David Contis told the Charlotte Observer last year that the display, which cost thousands of dollars to design and assemble, was a “mistake, and we had to correct.”

“If we lose money, so be it,” Contis said.

After similar complaints about the Menlo Mall display, why is it back this year? Patch has reached out to Simon for comment, and we’ll let you know when we hear back.

If the reaction this year is anywhere close to last year’s, it’s hard to see the display staying up for very long in New Jersey. Menlo Park Mall’s Facebook page was flooded with angry comments after it first went up for the 2015 holiday season.

“I’ll pass. The display looks like a strip club and should just be taken down. Most disgraceful idea of a Santa display I’ve ever seen. Will definitely be getting my daughters first Christmas pics done at Woodbridge mall. So sad especially because Menlo had the best Santa around,” Nicole Deak posted to the page.

“It looks like a Miami nightclub,” wrote another Facebook user, Karen Gundelach.

A Facebook page urging people to boycott Simon Malls got more than 7,000 likes. A change.org petition to change the display garnered more than 25,000 signatures.

You can see how the display changes colors in a video taken by Patch below:

Correction: Because of an editing error, this article originally mischaracterized the display as the "Glacier Experience," the name for a display used — and removed because of angry shoppers — at another of the Simon chain's properties.

Images: Katie Kausch for Patch