Tempers flare over tag typo on Halloween costume

The owners of Once Upon a Child in St. James said the tag was a typo from head office, and have retagged all merchandise from the affected brand. The store will also no longer sell the costume in question.

A Facebook post spread like wildfire Thursday morning, accusing a local store of selling a racist Halloween costume.

Once Upon a Child sells gently used clothing for children, including Halloween costumes.

Now, the St. James store is under fire for an outfit it had on display.

In a Facebook post shared more than 1,400 times, a Winnipeg woman claims the store is racist for selling a toddler costume of traditional indigenous dress, with a tag “rubbies.”

Rachel Lyons saw that post, and shared the photos herself.

“When I saw it, I was like ‘oh my god, no way.’ I don't know if the store knows what it means, but when native people see it, they know exactly what it means,” said Lyons. "The term for rubbies means you drink a lot, and you drink a lot of (rubbing) alcohol.”

Store owner Dave Dunlop and his wife had never heard of the term. He said he woke up Thursday morning to find his wife in tears.

"She said, ‘well Facebook is going crazy,’ and she showed me the post and neither of us had any idea what the problem was," he said.

Dunlop said the store had no ill will, and the typo was a mistake made at home office.

“That brand name for these particular costumes is called Rubie's and someone in Minneapolis, with our database that we have no control over, put the spelling as rubbies," said Dunlop.

Once Upon a Child has a full wall of Halloween costumes, and its owners say up to 15 other costumes with this brand name had the same label.

"To fix the problem locally, we removed these costumes from the shelf and retagged all the items with no brand name,” said Dunlop.

The owner added his store will no longer sell the costume in question.

Some say that should be a rule across the board.

“Our culture is not a costume… when our people wear it, it's out of respect and to honour our culture,” said MKO Grand Chief, Sheila North Wilson.

The original Facebook post has been removed.

In its place is a message that the poster doesn't want to speak to anyone about the photos, only raise awareness about profiling.

Once Upon a Child said it never received an in-store complaint, before seeing the post online.

The store said it's been in contact with the woman who posted the complaint and is working to mediate the situation.