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Your voice matter to the Clothes Horse.
Voice your thoughts here.
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Save Kid's Clothing Resale / Consignment
What were they thinking? On August 14, 2008, Congress passed the
Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act of 2008 (CPSIA), legislation including
a new ban on lead in children's products, requiring that all products for children
under the age 12 to be tested or pulled form the shelves. Sounds
like a good thing until you realize that the Act is retroactive and includes
all products made before the law was passed.
As a member of Tulsa
Area Resale Merchants Association (TARMA), a member of the National Association
of Resale and Thrift Shops (NARTS) and owner of a consignment shop, I feel
it is necessary to raise awareness in regard to this matter. Barring a repreive,
regulations set to take effect February 10, could force many children's
consignment and thrift stores to close their doors because the cost of lead testing
is very expensive and is destructive to the garment or item.
The
affect this Act will have on our economy obviously have not been considered.
Consignment stores are locally owned, small businesses that provide much
needed services to our community. We offer our consignors a place to bring
their outgrown, no longer needed clothing and items for resale while providing
our customers quality merchandise at discount prices. Our consignors
make a little money our customers save a little money ... everyone is happy.
What doesn't sell in a timely period gets donated to our local charities thus
going even farther in the recycling process. With the retroactive ruling
on the lead standard our industry will be faced with tons and tons of children's
products that cannot be legally sold or donated after February 9, 2009, will
ultimately end up in our landfills.
Product testing is necessary,
but at the manufacturers level, where the testing can be afforded and done on
a mass level and not individually. Our children's health and welfare is
very important to me and I believe changes need to be made on an "as of" effective
date, not retroactive and all encompassing.
Children's resale
clothing and toys have been a favorite of mothers and grandmothers for years.
Children grow so fast that using the services of consignment and thrift
stores has always been popular. The donations made to the communities
through consignment shops and thrift stores will dry up leaving many families
with little means to clothe their children. With the current state of the
economy, the resale industry provides an affordable alternative for people to
provide for their children and provides the best outlet for recycling perfectly
good items.
Joyce
Locate your elected officials at: www.congress.org
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Email from the website, fax or mail. View a Sample Letter which you can adapt, personalize or use as an idea for writing your own letter. When done, copy/paste into an email or print on your store letterhead and mail or fax.
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