Best Way To Hide 'creation Date' Field From Vendors

Hi,

I'm trying to hide the creation date field from vendors. I was able to do this using {if $auth.user_type=="A"}

{/if}, however i noticed that products created by vendors now have blank creation dates. Any advice on a different approach that will effectively hide this field from vendors or disallowing Vendors from editing this field?
TIA!
using 4.3.9

You can replace:

                    
{__("creation_date")}:
{include file="common/calendar.tpl" date_id="elm_date_holder" date_name="product_data[timestamp]" date_val=$product_data.timestamp|default:$smarty.const.TIME start_year=$settings.Company.company_start_year}

with

                    
{__("creation_date")}:
{include file="common/calendar.tpl" date_id="elm_date_holder" date_name="product_data[timestamp]" date_val=$product_data.timestamp|default:$smarty.const.TIME start_year=$settings.Company.company_start_year}

worked perfectly :)