A Sad Tale of Federal Regulatory Overkill & Thrift Shops

Remember the stampede in Congress to regulate toy imports from China and, then, by extension, regulate the testing and safety of toys sold in the US?

Talk about unintended consequences. I read about this at the time, but didn't really grasp the full impact.

Yesterday I visited a local resale shop to donate some items. One was a piece of clothing one of my children had outgrown. The other was an all-plastic toy.

The toy was an accessory for small metal cars. It was a simulated garage with a few electrically-powered moving parts.

When I spoke to an employee at the shop, she smiled as she took the article of clothing, then simply said,

"Sorry, we can't take the toy."

I somewhat dimly asked why not, and she reminded me that, with the imposition of recent regulations, all second-hand shops had to drop handling toys.

She told me that they can't afford the liability, should someone buy a used toy at the shop and then sue them for violating laws regarding lead, paint, or anything else now prohibited.

I looked at the toy I held, then at the woman. I knew it was useless to appeal that the toy had no paint, because it was obvious that the shop had to simply stop handling toys of all sorts.

Clearly, they had been told by their insurer that it wasn't enough for them to try to discriminate between lawful and unlawful donated toys.

It was safer for them to simply stop taking and reselling any toys.

This seems to me to be a sad state of affairs. In the current economic recession, I'm sure there are quite a few parents who would be happy to find some less expensive toys at resale shops.

But, now, that's impossible. A reliable source of used toys has been shuttered, raising costs to parents who can't necessarily buy new toys for their children all of the time.

How sad that a previously-functioning market for still-usable, used toys has been permanently destroyed by Congress' regulatory overreach.