Another interesting question in the mailbox:
Kristen, who owns a childrens’ consignment shop, wonders what to do…legally and morally…about items the Consumer Product Safety Commission has declared dangerous:
If a consignor comes in with a recalled item, should one return it and let them know we can’t take it because it is recalled. Do you destroy and say it was under recall we had to destroy it?
In the past we have always returned it and explained to them it is a recalled item …. Blah, blah blah.
But one of employees brought up – if they want this off the street what good does it do us to return it since in the CPSC handbook it says destroy it. But technically that item is not ours, and we don’t have the right to destroy it.
I can just see this becoming a potential problem – I try and avoid any and all problems, LOL.
Hi Kristen:
Well, what do YOU think?
(Note: I’m talking stuff the CPSIA considers illegal… take my tone down a notch if you are talking items which actually HAVE recalls published about them!*)
Hand it back to the owner telling her it’s recalled and request it be destroyed? That doesn’t suit the “spirit” of the law does it? You’re not helping the children of your area be any safer (and in a personally-selfish way, won’t she just take it to another resale shop who’ll therefore have “more stock” than you?)
Suggest that you, together, “remove it from any danger of harming a child” and destroy it together?
Ask if you might keep it, taking her name, for a “MyShop Makes Ourtown Safer” promo push (once you get a sizable pile, alert the media, take photos and post on your site/ blog/ shop bulletin board…thanking the Responsible Citizens whose names you’ve gathered)?
Or Choice FOUR: Call the CPSC and ask THEM. After all, you don’t want to be accumulating “hazardous waste” in your open-to-the-public shop. Yup, that’s what the Act calls those zippered jeans and winter coats etc… hazardous waste. While you’re at it, write a letter to the editor (both “the paper” and the online version of same) and point out the hard place the Federal Government has placed you in.
Okay, so you haven’t the time or energy to fight back when your government threatens you with criminal action. Realistically? All you can do is Choice One. Which doesn’t protect our children from the dangers of snaps etc whose manufacturers haven’t proven to the government aren’t full of lead. You’ll take a LOT of grief for refusing seemingly-innocuous items and you will lose business to less-“safety”-minded peers in resale. All you can do is, perhaps, prepare a 25-word or less sign stating your position, something maybe like “We Strive to Remove from Commerce all Recalled-as-Unsafe Items. Making a Buck is Not as Important as Keeping Children Safe. We Hope You Agree.”
* Now, there is a DIFFERENCE between items which have been recalled, and items that Sen. Waxman and his fellow idiots consider dangerous and illegal (such as jeans with zippers whose lead content MIGHT be dangerous, rhinestones on an 11-year-old’s Tshirt, etc.) Of course, recalled items which are dangerous should not be resold, but all conscientious resale shops have always checked the recall lists to ensure the safety of their clients’ children. That’s not the current issue…what’s scary now is the range of past-manufactured items which were declared criminal by fiat of the US Congress.
Auntie Kate The Resale Expert 