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York pub's Christmas reindeer event pulled after arson threat

The Saddle Inn The Saddle InnThe Saddle Inn
The pub in Fulford, York, had hoped to hold the festive family event on the final Saturday before Christmas

A York pub has cancelled a Father Christmas event after an email threatened to "burn it down" over the use of live reindeer during the visit.

The Saddle Inn in Fulford said it received about 1,000 messages expressing concern about the deer's welfare after advertising the event.

The pub said it went to the police after a minority of threatening communications and decided to cancel.

North Yorkshire Police said it was investigating the matter.

The Freedom for Animals charity said it had encouraged its supporters to "politely ask" the pub to run the event without animals and it did not condone threats of violence.

Rebecca Eccles, co-owner of the pub, said the communications forced her to change her work mobile number and they had received messages from all over the world, with the arson threat coming from a German address.

"I grew up in Northern Ireland in the 80s when we had the IRA as a threat, but this frightens me more because you don't know where it's coming from," she said.

"We just wanted to do something nice, we wouldn't have made any money from this at all - it was purely to do something for the local community for Christmas."

Free-ranging reindeer are spending time touring the UK to raise awareness about them.
The Saddle Inn said reindeer were going to be accompanied by trained handlers and wouldn't be petted

She said the decision to cancel was made "reluctantly" due to the safety threat, with five of the messages "not particularly friendly".

The pub said the company hired to bring the deer were supplying handlers trained in veterinary care, the animals would be kept in a turfed area of the beer garden and wouldn't be petted by visitors.

Isabelle McNally, from the Freedom for Animals charity, said: "We don't think it's necessary to be using reindeer in these events, it's proven to be incredibly stressful for them.

"We understand that children may find it magical to see them at Christmas, but there's nothing educational about seeing an animal which should have thousands of miles to roam in a little pen in a pub beer garden."

A North Yorkshire Police spokesperson said: "A complaint has been made about this matter and enquiries are ongoing."

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