Safety 1st Baby Monitor

Local consignment shops report few effects from drop-side crib ban

Across the Tampa Bay area, consignment stores coped with the first day of a ban on drop-side cribs, whose sale and manufacture has been banned by the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission and deemed hazardous by the American Academy of Pediatrics.

For many, the day came and went as anticlimactic and largely symbolic because they had already stopped selling the crib, which the safety commission says has been responsible for 32 infant suffocations and strangulations since 2000 and the subject of countless recalls.

Many local consignment stores had refused to sell the cribs once the recalls began or as soon as the commission announced in December that the coming ban.

"We stopped when they notified us that law was going to go into effect in June," said Mindy Socher, who has never heard of any drop-crib-related incidents during the 20 years she has owned Baby Boomerang in Tampa. "Why, if you're expecting in four months, would you buy this crib if you know this is going to happen in six months?"

Like all retailers of maternity and newborn goods, E.J. Acotto knew she had until Tuesday to remove the dangerous drop-side cribs — but the commission's demands didn't matter to her. She didn't carry the cribs in the first place.

She didn't want the safety questions.

"Pretty much, between car seats and cribs, too many people focus on them, they ask too many questions," said Acotto, 37, owner of Thrifty Baby Consignment Sales in Dunedin. "I don't want an item that people question the safety of."

Recalls already prompted the Consignment Furniture Gallery in St. Petersburg to stop carrying the drop-side cribs, said owner Matthew Sperber.

"We never felt comfortable dealing with that," he said. "We'd feel horrible if we sold something that was out of spec and someone got injured because of it."

Others were less clear on just what the regulations entailed. Along with making the safety tests more rigorous and the cribs more durable and supportive, the mandatory rules require cribs to have fixed sides.

At Ace's Place in Holiday, 32-year-old Nikki Irwin ceased sales of drop-side cribs upon the commission's announcement, thinking that the six month window applied only to manufacturers, not retailers.

Nychelle Fleming, a spokesperson for the commission, said field officers will randomly sample stores selling cribs and monitor Internet sales sites. She urged drop-side crib owners not to pass them along or fix them, adding that some companies offer refunds, replacements and other remedies.

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