UTV News - Santa in Tesco grotto 'stand-off'

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Santa in Tesco grotto 'stand-off'

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Santa landed himself in a ho-ho-whole lot of trouble after getting caught up in a stand-off over noise.
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Not used to having neighbours in the North Pole, Santa faced a complaint from a resident who lived close to a charity grotto in east Belfast, because of the volume that Christmas music was being played at.

The resident claimed too much noise was filtering through from where the bearded one had set up home in the car park of a Tesco store at Knocknagoney.

On Tuesday, strongman Glen Ross, the organiser behind the setting up of the grotto, said he was disappointed by the unexpected turn of events though.

The grotto allows local children to visit Santa and receive a gift, with the proceeds going to charity.

"It's been open for five days, we've had over 100 children through the doors - kids are loving it," he told UTV Live Tonight. "We've had fairies running up and down the aisles, and elves - a real Christmas atmosphere and Santa's been giving out the presents ..."

But plans to bring Santa in by helicopter had to be shelved because of a complaint and the organisers were asked to move the grotto.

Glen said that was too big an ask, even for a strongman.

"We can't physically move something that took a week to build - and it's cost us a lot of money to build it," he said.

Santa and his elves decided to stage a colourful sit-in, as they refused to move. Their protest has since ended and the grotto was relocated to another part of the store car park. It will re-open on Thursday.

A spokesperson from Tesco said Santa was welcome to stay as long as he keeps the noise down.

© UTV News

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At 12:55 on 03 December 2009, Jim wrote:
Some need to get a LIFE!!!!
At 23:30 on 02 December 2009, jim wrote:
BAAAHUMBUG
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