Outrage has followed a decision by an Ontario legion hall to award the best costume prize to a man dressed in a Ku Klux Klan outfit pulling another man in blackface by a noose around his neck.

According to reports, the Halloween outfit was on show at the Campbellford, Ontario, Legion Hall on Saturday night for a Halloween costume parade.

Witnesses said the man in the KKK outfit has a Confederate flag attached to the back, with a hood on.

Offended patrons walked out of the legion hall, which has been bombarded with complaints since then.

Reports said the duo won the prize for best costume that night.

Joy Herrington, the Legion branch's president, issued a formal apology the next day.

"Their members, their executive members, are the ones that organized this party, are the ones that hosted this party, are the ones that allowed those people to come in and then judged them to win first prize," one witness said in a quote in the Ottawa Citizen.

"For them to say that this is not the opinion of our members, that's wrong. Apparently, it is the opinion of some of their members."

The witness, who is Black, said Herrington told him she received hundreds of complaints the next day. But, as far as he knows, no one spoke up to object at the time.

The witness said this is the first incident of racism he's experienced in Campbellford, a town 50 kilometres northwest of Belleville, in the 12 years he's lived there.

But despite the apology, he said he'll never set foot in the Legion again.

"If they thought that was in good humour and funny enough to win a prize, that's disgusting. If that's their opinion, and they think there's nothing wrong with lynching black people, that's totally disgusting.

"Either way, there's nothing right about what happened."