It’s back to PR battle stations for Wal-Mart. One of the retailer’s New York stores booted out some high-school Christmas carolers as a “fire hazard” — setting up the company for criticism by both the righty “War on Christmas” crowd and the lefty giant-unfeeling-corporation contingent.

Give the Wal-Mart PR team credit; they are trying. As Newsday reports:

Wal-Mart officials released a statement … saying the choir’s appearance was unscheduled and created a fire code violation. “For their safety and the safety of our customers, we asked them to move,” the statement read.

Wal-Mart has offered the school an opportunity for the choir to return at a scheduled time. The store also made an undisclosed donation toward the choir’s trip next summer to Austria, where they will be one of three student choirs from the United States to perform at a celebration of the 250th anniversary of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s birth.

Hey, Media Orchard wants a trip to Austria, too! We think we’ll grab a few of our karaoke buddies and head over to Wal-Mart now…

Technorati tags: Wal-Mart, PR, Public Relations, War on Christmas