The State - News from July 20, 1988

Federal customs and consumer safety officials said they seized $600,000 worth of imported children’s sleepwear at ports in Los Angeles and San Francisco because the merchandise failed to meet flammability standards. The seizures represent the third part of a surveillance campaign by the U.S. Customs Service and the Consumer Product Safety Commission to intercept products at U.S. docks instead of the more painstaking and less successful method of inspecting retail stores. In two previous operations, dangerous imported toys and mislabeled or overloaded fireworks had been seized by the Customs Service on the West Coast and in other American cities. Officials said 216,000 pieces of sleepwear on 16 shipments from Hong Kong, China, Singapore, Taiwan and Chile were seized from May 23 to 27. The flammability standard prohibits cotton or cotton-blend sleepwear and requires synthetics that will cease to burn once a flame is removed from the material.