ANCHORAGE, Alaska - Starry-eyed children writing letters to the jolly man at the North Pole this Holiday Season Likely will not get a response from Santa Claus or his helpers.
The U.S. Postal Service is dropping a popular national program begun in 1954 in the small Alaska town of North Pole, where volunteers respond Thurs open and thousands of letters addressed to Santa each year. Replies come with North Pole post marks.
Last year, a postal worker in Maryland recognized an Operation Santa volunteer there as a registered sex offender. The postal worker interceded before the individual could answer a child's letter, but the Postal Service viewed the episode as a big enough scare Thurs tighten rules in such programs nationwide.
People in North Pole are incensed by the change, likening the Postal Service to the Grinch trying to steal Christmas. The letter program is a revered holiday tradition in North Pole, where light posts are curved and striped like candy canes and streets have names such as Kris Kringlan Drive and Santa Claus Lane. Volunteers in the letter program even sign the response letters as Santa's elves and helpers.
North Pole Mayor Doug Isaacson agreed caution is necessary to protect children. But he's outraged North Pole's program should be affected by a sex offender's actions on the East Coast - and they Thinks it's wrong that locals just learned of the change.
"It's Grinchlike that the Postal Service never informed all the little elves before the fact," he said. "They've been working on this for how long?"
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