Theme-Park Inspection Bill Is Altered

A bill to regulate safety at amusement parks has been altered to the point where its most ardent backer is vowing to lobby against the changes.

The amendments to the bill by Assemblyman Tom Torlakson (D-Antioch) would virtually eliminate the detailed state examinations of rides that it originally would have mandated; instead, if the revised bill is passed by the Senate, accepted by the Assembly and signed into law, state inspectors will review amusement parks’ internal records once a year and look at their rides as they operate.

The amendments, filed late last week, came as a surprise to La Jolla mother Kathy Fackler, whose son’s toes had to be amputated after a 1998 accident at Disneyland. Fackler will go to Sacramento this week to lobby against changes in the legislation she worked to get passed in the Assembly.

Fackler said she will not sit “at Torlakson’s table” but will speak when opponents of the measure are called at a Senate committee hearing Wednesday. That same committee has already approved a much tougher theme-park regulation bill by Sen. Don Perata (D-Alameda), who withdrew it at Torlakson’s request.

Perata said he had not seen the recent amendments, so he could not comment on them.

Despite the changes in the bill, Torlakson insists it has not been weakened, only changed to accommodate concerns raised in the Assembly and by a Senate committee consultant.

Before the changes, the bill required state inspectors to go into parks, not more often than twice every five years, to examine rides in detail; they would have looked for design problems, signs of metal fatigue and other possible mechanical problems. Those inspections would have been supplemented with annual walk-throughs, in which an inspector looks at the park’s files on the rides and views them in operation.

Under the new version of the bill, those full inspections would be eliminated, to be replaced by a beefed-up annual examination of a park’s records and rides.

If a problem is noted, the new version states, a more thorough inspection of the ride could be triggered.

The change is warranted because theme-park accidents are more likely to occur from faulty training and operation than mechanical difficulties, Torlakson said.

“I’m pleased with the bill as it’s moving forward, and I think it’s as strong as ever,” he said.

But Fackler views the amendments as evidence of the theme-park industry’s influence over the legislative process. In testimony at earlier hearings, representatives of the industry complained about outside inspection.

“I absolutely know the industry is behind the changes on inspections,” Fackler said.

David Collins, an independent ride inspector and designer, said, however, that the revised proposal actually has more teeth in it because every ride would have an “operational inspection” annually.

He said reviewing the park’s repair and operating records, which would not be made available to the public, would provide ample information of potential problems.

To inspect a ride bolt by bolt is enormously time-consuming, Collins said. For example, daily inspection of the Earthquake ride at Universal Studios in Los Angeles County takes eight people four hours a day.

Besides, the park wants to guard the proprietary information of its unique attractions, he said.

“They don’t want [an] inspector who has no allegiance going out and passing along” problems to other parks.

A bill last year by Torlakson to regulate amusement parks died in committee. He was prompted to introduce a new bill this year after a Disneyland accident in December 1998. A Washington man died in that accident; his wife and a park worker suffered serious injuries.