One casualty of the current series of clown scares and hoaxes across the country has been Ronald McDonald, who McDonald’s sent on vacation while there’s a nationwide rash of suspicious incidents involving people dressed as clowns. Now Target has decided that it doesn’t want to be a supplier to aspiring creepy clowns, and is pulling clown masks from stores and from its website.

Every region of the country has its own scary-clown stories at the moment, beginning with children in South Carolina who claimed that creepy clowns tried to coax them into the woods. Clown-related mayhem has spread across the country since then, and the Minneapolis Star-Tribune reports that Target has apparently decided that this Halloween isn’t the time to sell piles of clown masks.

The retailer’s home state of Minneapolis has been the site of some of the clown scares, including multiple Facebook-based threats made by a teen. A volunteer soccer coach was dismissed after a photo circulated of him lurking on the field wearing a clown mask at the team’s last practice of the year. Some students weren’t in on the joke and reported the photo to authorities.

Target, meanwhile, is still selling costumes for regular clowns. It’s those scary clown masks that it has pulled from sale until the seasonal creepy clown mania passes.

Target pulls clown masks from stores and website due to ‘crazy clown’ scares [Minneapolis Star-Tribune]

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