Salvation Army Trumpeter Muted by Wal-Mart

A retired music school professor says he was told to stop playing holiday songs on his trumpet while collecting for the Salvation Army outside a northern New York Wal-Mart store.

Robert Gibbs, an 81-year-old retired Crane School of Music professor, says managers at the Wal-Mart store in Potsdam told him Thursday that he could not play his horn at his kettle.

Gibbs says Friday he's been playing Christmas carols and holiday standards like "White Christmas" for years outside the store in northern New York.

A Wal-Mart spokeswoman says rules developed with the Salvation Army exclude music and musical instruments for kettle volunteers. Spokeswoman Kayla Whaling added that Wal-Mart and Sam's Club stores helped the Salvation Army raise more than $46 million last year.

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