Law Would Make Crib Sellers Liable
Legislation proposed in California would make it unlawful to sell unsafe cribs and would make sellers liable for injuries resulting from their use. Though aimed primarily at thrift shops, which account for more than 25% of used crib sales, the bill would also affect people selling cribs at garage sales.
State Assemblywoman Jackie Speier (D-San Mateo) has introduced the bill at the behest of the Danny Foundation, an advocacy group formed by the parents of a child who suffered brain damage when his clothing caught on a crib post and choked him. The child, Danny Lineweaver of Alamo, Calif., died at age 11 last year.
Jack Walsh, director of the foundation, said his organization decided to seek legislation after unsuccessfully lobbying the U.S. Consumer Products Safety Commission to recall unsafe cribs. He said 13,000 infants are injured in cribs each year and that about 50 die of their injuries. His group estimates that three out of four infants sleep in secondhand cribs, some of which may be unsafe. The bill defines an unsafe crib as one that does not meet industry design standards. Corner crib posts should be no higher than a sixteenth of an inch. The mattress support should lock in place. Walsh said cribs manufactured after 1990 generally meet those standards.
Supporters acknowledge that the legislation is tough on people who sell used cribs at garage sales and are unaware of possible hazards. The provision applying to them may not survive legislative compromise. “We’d like to see it in there but . . . this isn’t the final form of the bill,” Walsh said, noting that it must go through legislative committee hearings.
Walsh said people can test a mattress support by kicking upward on it. (It shouldn’t lift easily.) Most cribs meet a 1973 standard that set the distance between crib slats, he said. The distance is too wide if a can of soda fits between the slats.
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Return to sender: “Get hysterical,” says the prepaid subscription insert card inside the March issue of Spy magazine, a publication devoted to tweaking the rich and powerful.
No doubt people who mail in their card with a check enclosed for $16.95 will go hysterical. Spy is ceasing publication this month.
Joel Rizack, president of Spy Corp. in New York, was answering the telephone in near-empty magazine offices this week when we called to find out why the final issue contains not one but two subscription solicitations. He said the decision to pull the plug on Spy was made after the magazine was put together. “That’s why it doesn’t say last issue,” he explained.
Rizack said payments for new subscriptions will be returned. Current subscribers will receive either a refund or a new magazine if Spy manages to sell its subscription list to an existing publication, Rizack said.
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Consumer committee: Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Arthur Levitt has named a consumer affairs advisory committee to give the SEC a stronger consumer focus.
He said he is forming the 15-member committee because low interest rates have caused many less sophisticated investors to abandon certificates of deposit and other federally insured investments in favor of higher-yielding but riskier stocks and mutual funds. “We need, if you will, to protect people against themselves,” Levitt said.
He said committee members, drawn from business, government, the securities industry and consumer organizations, will provide input on changes in SEC policy and rules.
Members include Price Club founder Sol Price and Bonnie Guiton Hill, formerly California’s top consumer regulator and now dean of the University of Virginia’s McIntire School of Commerce.
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Throwing the booklet at ‘em: As part of its consumer initiative, the SEC wants securities brokers to give their clients a new 12-page booklet advising them to “talk with potential salespeople at several firms” before choosing a broker and to find out “how the sales representative is paid.” Brokers may earn salary or commissions based on sales. Commissions may be higher on a firm’s own investment products.
The booklet also provides the phone numbers of 12 securities regulators to call with complaints, as well as a toll-free number ((800) 289-999) consumers can use to check on a broker’s disciplinary history.
This isn’t the kind of advice brokers typically dispense. Nonetheless, the SEC’s Levitt thinks his agency can “persuade them to give the brochure to consumers.”
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She’s seen the enemy: Esther Peterson, a U.S. representative to the United Nations, urged a gathering of consumer organizations in Washington last week to “take on the enemy,” commercial television advertising. She said commercials with sexual overtones disturb her most, and cited as an example the ads for Calvin Klein fragrances.
