There is a new child safety bill going into effect on February 10 that was threatening reselling businesses, but now a change to the bill is exempting consignment stores from the law. This is good news to stores who were concerned they were going to go out of business.
The Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act goes into effect on February 10. The law bans the sale of products with more than 600 parts per million of lead, regardless of when it was made. In order to certify their products, stores who resell children’s toys and bottles would have had to purchase expensive lead testing equipment.
"It was $400 a day to rent it plus $160 in shipping to have it," said De Ana Jimenez of Repeats Children’s Resale. "That was way out of our budget. We might as well close doors."But luckily they won’t have to. The Consumer Product Safety Commission offered a last minute reprieve, exempting thrift and consignment stores from the law.
"It was total relief," said owner Karen Wilde. "I was so relieved we could keep moving forward."There are still questions about the law, however. While stores like Repeats won’t have to test for lead, they are still liable if they sell products that are above the limit. Wilde and Jimenez say they were also frustrated that they only found out about the law by watching the news.
"We need to come together as a group so we can address this with our elected officials because they don’t know how it’s going to affect us as business owners," said Wilde.
They also plan to watch the ever-growing list of recalled products carefully to avoid reselling anything harmful.