Home Town Toy Story

A CALL TO ACTION

My name is Debbie Baillie and I own a specialty toy store in Snohomish, WA. I pride myself in providing high quality developmental books and toys for children. My small business is providing alternatives to the mainstream bulk toy store mentality. Most of my inventory is made to the European standards, which are the strictest standards in the world. Alas, if CPSIA goes into effect as written on 2/10/09, you will probably see most specialty toy stores like mine go bankrupt overnight.

There is currently no grandfather clause for existing inventory and it will be illegal to sell any as of 2/10/09.  As I said, most of my inventory is the safest in the market and yet......  Feb 10, 2009 is quickly becoming known as Bankruptcy Day for the specialty toy market in the US.

If no grandfather clause is included into this law, then it begs the following very important question:  Will hospitals, schools, daycares, churches, macdonalds, thrift stores, doctor/dentist offices, and other businesses offering toys for children to play with be included in the scope of this law?  If I cannot sell my fabulous toys as they will be considered "toxic," then surely businesses and social services offering toys for play will have to turf out all their existing toys and buy new ones.  Surely they will not be allowed to give kids access to their "toxic" toys... Who is going to oversee that compliance, especially in all the businesses, schools, etc.

The testing component of this law is so expensive and cumbersome that most small American child product manufacturers will probably go out of business and European manufacturers will probably simply stop selling to the US (e.g., Selecta, German non-toxic toys for babies, will no longer be available in the US after tomorrow as a result of this new law).  

We are all committed to safe toys for children, that's one of the reasons we opened our specialty toy stores and have European inventory on our shelves.  If Congress doesn't pay more attention to the consequences of this pending law, US children will be left with the scrappy junk that caused this problem in the first place and the quality stuff will be available to all the children outside of the US.

Please don't take my word for it, speak with Senator Val Stevens, Senator Steve Hobbs, Senator Brian Hatfield and Senator Jim Honeyford, they all completely understand where this fabulous law is falling way short of making toys safer for US children.

Please help specialty toy stores and specialty toy/child product manufacturers in the US stay in business and continue providing US children with the best toys in the world.

Contributed by: Debbie Baillie