Toy Plant Was in Fire Code Compliance Before Blast

Los Angeles city fire officials said Friday that a downtown toy factory where four workers died in a powerful explosion was in complete compliance with fire safety codes.

Nonetheless, the deadly blast at the Imperial Toy Corp. on Wednesday offered a glimpse of the new Los Angeles economy’s gritty reality: an industrial subculture of low-wage employees working in potentially hazardous conditions with little benefit of safety gear and no protection under state laws that allow large amounts of unregulated explosive materials to be stored inside the factories where hundreds work.

The four workers died when a machine, which officials say appears to have been made in China, blew apart while wrapping plastic around popping caps made from black powder.

About half a dozen other workers were injured in the afternoon blast, which shattered windows on the second-floor assembly line and sparked scattered fires in the 80-year-old building. Firefighters blamed confusion at the scene for earlier, incorrect reports of 25 injuries.

Workers said Friday that the machine was operated by six women who wore no protective gear and had few safety instructions.

“Working with the gunpowder seemed dangerous, but we didn’t say anything,” said Esther Valderrama, an employee who had operated the machine and whose sister, Maria Valenzuela, was killed in the explosion. “We didn’t know.”

An attorney for the company, Jim Hornstein, said Imperial had a “spotless safety record” and was unaware of any regulation that workers don protective garb. “We’re unaware of any requirement for the workers to wear any special protective gear in the packaging of these toys,” Hornstein said. “But we’re happy to look into it, if that’s an issue.”

As for its adherence to fire code requirements, the toy company operates one of the better factories in the city, Fire Chief Bill Bamattre said.

“The occupancy as a whole is very clean,” the chief said at a packed news conference at Fire Department headquarters.

In response to a request by The Times and another news organization, Bamattre released inspection records showing that the company had received fairly regular inspections in recent years and had been cited only for relatively minor violations, such as hanging objects from fire sprinkler pipes.

Officials from the firefighters union had contended that the building had not been inspected for several years. Records showed that the building did go uninspected from 1994 to 1996, but that no fire safety problems arose during those years.

Fire officials offered no new details on the cause of the explosion, saying any conclusive findings would not be known for at least a month. Officials said a loophole in state law allowed the company to store virtually unlimited quantities of the black-powder caps used for the toy guns and toy grenades it sells.

The amount of powder in the individual cap falls slightly below the amount--0.25 grams--at which state fire laws apply.

“We’re talking about an unregulated piece of product,” said Capt. Robert Meilleur, whose unit is responsible for inspecting the factory.

The machine at the center of the investigation was the only one in the factory used to package the toy guns and the small gun caps, workers said. It was operated by six women who wore almost no protective gear as a safety precaution. Most wore pants and tops; some workers even wore shorts. The women handled the small capsules of gunpowder without gloves, workers said, and received only a cursory explanation of how to work the machine.

“There are not a lot of safety precautions,” said Manuel Quinteros, 27.

He and others described the factory as having a low-key atmosphere in which safety procedures were rarely discussed. They said there were no emergency drills practiced or evacuation procedures posted inside the buildings. Only a few workers said they knew how to operate the fire extinguishers.

Anguished relatives of those who died blamed a lack of safety for the blast. “It wasn’t safe, and they didn’t do anything about it,” said Arturo Valenzuela, whose wife, Maria, was killed. “This is horrible.”

Said Jose Martinez, whose wife, Juana, was killed: “I’m angry. . . . They took the one I most cared about. Why didn’t they fix it?”

Hornstein, Imperial Toy’s attorney, said the company’s overall safety record speaks for itself. “The company has been engaged with a spotless safety record with the packaging and sale of these toy caps for 20 years, without incident or problem from a [workplace] safety perspective or from consumers,” he said.