Hallmark Yanks 'Swastika' Gift Wrap

Not ideal for wrapping Hanukkah presents
By Rob Quinn,  Newser Staff
Posted Dec 10, 2014 1:51 AM CST
Hallmark Yanks 'Swastika' Gift Wrap
Cheryl Shapiro displays the Hanukkah gift wrap with a swastika-like pattern she found at a Walgreen's store in Northridge, Calif.   (AP Photo/Los Angeles Daily News, Andy Holzman)

Hallmark has halted sales of wrapping paper with a swastika-like design and apologized to customers who may have been offended. California woman Cheryl Shapiro was looking at rolls of paper in a Walgreen's Hanukkah display last week when she noticed how lines in the trim formed the symbol. "It blew me away," she tells ABC. "What the hell was that doing on there?" She complained to the store, "but I wanted this to go national. I want this out of the stores nationally," she says.

Hallmark, which licensed the paper, ordered retailers nationwide to stop selling it after receiving the complaint, reports the Kansas City Star. "We apologize for the oversight and apologize to anyone who was offended. That obviously was not our intent," a company spokeswoman says. "It was an oversight on our part to not notice the intersecting lines that could be seen as a swastika pattern." She says the design was based on an old vase from China where, as in some other cultures, the swastika is an ancient symbol of good luck. (Last year, 120 tattoo parlors around the world offered free swastikas for a day in an effort to "reclaim" the symbol.)

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