Entertainment

Beard Ban Stays At Disney Parks

March 26, 2000 / 3:35 PM EST / CBS/AP

Facial hair today, gone tomorrow.

Disney park employees still can't sport beards.

Worried about finding workers in a tight labor market, Walt Disney executives are relaxing the company's long-standing ban against theme park employees having facial hair, The Orlando Sentinel reported Saturday.

Mustaches will be okay, although beards will still be taboo.

Walt Disney adopted its clean-cut code for Disneyland employees in 1957, requiring men to be clean shaven and to keep their hair short.

Though he sported a mustache himself, the company's founder thought the prohibition was necessary to change the image of amusement parks from that of sleazy carnivals to a wholesome, family environment. Employees who worked for the creative side of the company, Walt Disney Imagineering and the Walt Disney Studio, were generally exempt.

"I think most of the people would say hallelujah," said Mike Duffy, president of the Service Employees International Union Local 362, which represents Disney workers. "It's good to see the company come into the new millennium from the 1950s."

The new policy comes as the company is struggling to find workers for its theme parks, offering incentives from cash bonuses to tuition reimbursements.

The appearance code was last revised in 1994, when female theme park workers were permitted to use eye shadow and eyeliner and balding men were allowed to wear toupees.