DES ARC, AR - Every year a Massachusetts-based non-profit corporation called W.A.T.C.H. (World Against toys Causing Harm) publishes during the Christmas shopping season, its annual "10 Worst Toys" list. On the 2007 "10 Worst Toys" List is a product called "The Dora Explorer Lamp," made in China. It looks more like a plastic cartoon character than a lamp. It retails for just under $13 in the baby department at Wal-Mart, and comes with the following manufacturer's warning in small print: "This is an electric lamp, not a toy! To avoid risk of fire, burns, personal injury and electric shock, it should not be played with or placed where small children can reach it. HAZARD: Potential for Electric Shock and Burn Injuries!"
According to W.A.T.C.H., "This colorful lamp, based upon the popular Nickelodeon 'Nick Jr.' character, is in the form of a smiling plastic figurine. The packaging encourages children to 'light-up your room with Dora!' Incredibly, children are further instructed to 'unplug the product when leaving the house, when retiring for the night, or if left unattended.' The manufacturer's proclamation that the Dora cartoon character is not a toy has little meaning to small children, who may be attracted to the figurine and thus be exposed to the potential electric hazard."
The consumer group says it lists toys "with the potential to cause childhood injuries, or even death." According to W.A.T.C.H., their efforts "have fearlessly exposed potentially dangerous toys to the general public. As a result, children's lives have been saved."
Buddy Childress, a 72-year old termite control contractor, did not enter the Wal-Mart Supercenter in Searcy, Arkansas thinking about saving a child's life. Childress lives in the small community of Des Arc, Arkansas, with his wife, Ann. He has owned his small business there for more than four decades. On Thursday, November 30, Childress drove to Searcy, Arkansas to do some shopping at Wal-Mart. When he went into the store, he says he noticed the toy section and decided to have a look at it, "thinking I might see some things our young grandchildren would like. Our three-year-old granddaughter loves Dora the Explorer, a little Nickelodeon cartoon character, so I looked over a shelf full of Dora items."
Childress' visit to the Wal-Mart toy section went south from there. He narrates what happened next: "When I saw a little lamp made in the form of a seated figure of Dora, I remembered that about a week earlier, my wife and I had seen this item mentioned on CNN as being on the 10 Most Hazardous Toys for 2007 list, issued by the organization, W.A.T.C.H. I picked up the box and looked the lamp over. In very small print on the bottom of the packaging was a warning: 'This is an electric lamp, not a toy. To avoid risk of fires, burns, personal injury or electric shock, it should not be played with or placed where small children can reach it.' But it looked like a toy, and it was for sale in the toy department."
Childress called his wife and asked her to get on the internet to make sure that the item he was looking at was identical to the one he has seen listed on CNN. "Ann called me back in a few minutes," Childress recalls, "and told me that she had read several articles, some including photos of the lamp. She told me she'd learned that inside the packaging were instructions to 'unplug the product when leaving the house, when retiring for the night, or if left unattended.' There was no doubt that the item on the Most Dangerous Toys list was the same one for sale at Wal-Mart."
Childress watched as a woman with two small children picked up the lamp and started to put it in her shopping cart. "When I told her what I'd just learned she thanked me and put the item back on the shelf," Childress explains. "I then picked it up and went to show it to the store manager, thinking he would be glad to learn how dangerous it was and would remove it from the toy shelves." Instead, the manager told Childress, "Well, you can hear anything on CNN, and just because something's on the internet doesn't mean it's true." Childress asked the manager to check out the internet information for himself, but he refused. The manager said that it wouldn't make any difference -- he could only pull items off the shelves if they were on a list issued by Wal-Mart's corporate headquarters.
Childress then purchased one of the two Dora lamps on the toy shelf, left the store, and started home. "I thought maybe I could show it to some newspaper editors in nearby towns," Childress reasoned, "hoping they might write something to warn people away from buying it." But as he drove home, Childress kept thinking about the dangerous lamp that was still sitting on that Wal-Mart shelf in Searcy. "I was picturing the family who'd almost bought one when I was there," he confesses. "I also decided I should tell the manager that if Wal-Mart was going to keep selling this obviously hazardous toy -- which wasn't a toy, but was for sale in the toy department -- I felt I'd have to pursue other means of getting the word out about it. Maybe then he would do something."
Childress turned his car around, drove back to Wal-Mart, and approached the manager again. "He said he'd called Wal-Mart's headquarters after I'd left, and they'd told him there was nothing they would do. Then I told him I felt this was willful child endangerment, and I'd have to go to -- and write to -- area newspapers. He said, "Well, if you do that, you'd better be sure all your T's are crossed and your I's are dotted, because you will be facing legal action."
Buddy Childress then circled back to the toy department to see if the Dora Lamp had been sold. It had not. "But a little girl was reaching for it," Childress recalls, "and telling her mother she wanted it. I warned them also -- and they didn't buy the lamp." Having thwarted two sales, Childress considered buying the second lamp himself -- but he knew Wal-Mart would just bring out more from their stockroom. "I couldn't keep people from buying the lamp from the Searcy Wal-Mart -- let alone from all the other Wal-Marts in Arkansas and all across the country," Childress figured. "I felt I had to do something that would make a statement and focus attention on this extremely dangerous toy."
Childress dialed 911 on his cell phone, and was connected with the Searcy Police Department. He told the officer who answered the phone where he was, what had happened in the toy department, and that he intended to take the lamp outside the store and destroy it. "He tried to get me not to do it," Childress admits, "but I told him I was going to, and that I'd be waiting outside the store for the police to arrive. I expected to be arrested there, and taken to the police station."
Childress says he took The Dora Explorer Lamp outside the store to the sidewalk. "I destroyed it," he says, "I stomped on it, and then waited for the police to arrive." Before the cops arrived, five or six Wal-Mart employees came out of the store and surrounded Childress. They ordered him to accompany them back inside the store to an office in the back. "I told them I would go, but I would rather wait until the police got there. Their reply was, "You're coming with us now."
Back inside Wal-Mart, employees took Childress' cell phone away from him, and refused to let him make any calls. "They put some papers in front of me and instructed me to sign them," Childress says, "but I refused." A Searcy policeman came in, and the Wal-Mart people said they were charging Childress with shoplifting. "The officer was very courteous and professional, and told me procedure required him to put me in handcuffs." Childress says he then had to take one of the most humiliating walks of his life from the back of the store, out through the front door, handcuffed and escorted by the police. In retelling the moments of his arrest, Childress' voice is unsteady, and choked with emotion.
At the White County Detention Center, Childress was fingerprinted, and a 'mug shot' was taken ("A very unattractive one, but maybe that was unavoidable"). He was searched and questioned, and given a ticket with SHOPLIFTING written in large print. The policeman who had arrested him offered to take Childress back to his car, which was still parked at Wal-Mart, but by the time he was free to go, the cop had to leave.
"By the time I got home," Childress sighs, "I had begun to realize the possible repercussions of people who knew me reading in the newspaper that I'd been arrested for shoplifting. They wouldn't have any way of knowing that my motive in taking something out of the store had been to alert parents about a toy which could hurt their children or cause a house fire. Without an explanation, it would sound like I was stealing."
"I have lived in Des Arc most of my life," Childress explains, "as has my family for many generations. My children and grandchildren live nearby. I have friends and customers all over the state. I went to college in Searcy, and many of my old friends and former classmates live there. My wife and my sons understand what happened and have been totally supportive. So far, I haven't told anyone else. But I know that the story of my arrest for shoplifting from Wal-Mart will be in the Searcy, Des Arc, and other area newspapers within the next few days."
Childress says he took Dora Explorer out of Wal-Mart for two simple reasons: "First, and most importantly, I hope it will act as a deterrent to shoppers everywhere this story appears, to not buy this item from Wal-Mart, or any other retailer. Wal-Mart is continuing to sell this item despite the many warnings about it. You have to wonder how many other items on store shelves fall into this category? Secondly, I want to tell people who know me exactly what I did and why I did it. I hope I can do some damage-control regarding my business and my reputation. It isn't my nature to be a 'protestor.'"
The case of Wal-Mart Stores v Buddy Childress will be heard in an Arkansas court on December 13th. It is a special Wal-Mart Christmas "Toy Story" from the retailer's home state that you won't see on any of their holiday ads. "I have never before committed an act of civil disobedience," Buddy the Toy-Destroyer says. "But I have thought a lot about all this, and regardless of the consequences -- if I had it to do over -- I would still do what I did."
Al Norman is the author of Slam-Dunking Wal-Mart, and The Case Against Wal-Mart. He is the founder of Sprawl-Busters.
If that lamp was in the room décor section, would this even be an issue. So far we haven't heard of a single house burning down, or a child spontaneously combusting. If we can not teach our children to treat a lamp as such, then we should also let them use a knife as a screw driver or we might as well just let them play in traffic. Maybe if we took the time out of our busy busy schedules to teach our children what was appropriate to play with, we might not worry so much.
In regards to Conan the toybarians actions....He got what he had coming to him. Before you start pointing the finger, realize that while you were staring into your crystal clear computer monitor, in your acid washed jeans, sitting on you plush couch.....a large percentage of your comfortable life has been built by your so hated Asian counterparts. Yes we need to tighten up our hold on safe materials used in production of such items, but lets not get our selves into a frantic rage.
P.S. While you were wasting your already neurosis filled lives on your computer blogging all day, your 12 year old was on your second, Asian produced computer, my spacing a 37 year old . Seriously, Where are your priorities?!
First and foremost....We all know Wal-Mart is a giant in the industry that is and has always been all about Sell Sell Sell! This is old news, and if it took you this long to realize it, then you've been deaf, dumb and blind for the past 45 years. The reason this particular product (Which in fact is a piece of Décor for a Childs room) was in the toy Aisle, was obviously because a Wal-Mart Buyer thought it would be best for sales. Licensed driven product will sell best when in plain view of a child. Although the product will catch the eye of a child, it is up to the parents to choose if it is a proper item for their child.
Every product on the market has warnings. These warnings are to instruct the consumer (which is the parent) in ensuring he or she handles the item the way it was intended. The warnings are also required of the manufacturer by safety regulators. Until these warnings are on packages, they are not released onto the market. Also, this lamp is in fact UL approved. Otherwise the Item would have never hit the self. If you see a glass half empty, you might perceive a lamp box with warnings and instructions like a box of poison. But if you see a glass half full, you might see a company looking out for the best interests of the the consumer, and also reducing the chance of serious financial collapse.
Continued......
I saw on Wake Up Wal-Mart this morning that they're sending a letter to Congress about this. Cut and pasted, here it is:
"In the wake of a recent wave of toy recalls, WakeUpWalMart.com in conjunction with leading consumer and environmental groups, and Wal-Mart Watch today sent a letter to Senator Byron Dorgan (D-ND), asking him, as chair of the Subcommittee on Interstate Commerce, Trade & Tourism, to call for hearings on Wal-Mart’s pressure on Chinese suppliers."
Wal-Mart, in my opinion, is not policing its products for safety at the most basic level if they allow this sort of product, already publicly reported, to remain available in the toy section for children to be attracted to, and their parents to buy.
Rather than the high road, Wal-Mart seems to have decided that every penny, however earned, is more important than safety. Have a nice life Wal-Mart!
Yeah. Toddlers and electric wall sockets are such a great combination, aren't they?
I notice that the two people who were considering buying this lamp rejected it after Mr. Childress told them of the hazard. No wonder WalMart didn't want to take it off the shelves. Money is honey, and if a handful of toddlers die in a house fire, that's just collateral damage, and acceptable.
Of course, these minimum-wage Walmart jobs may have been the only jobs available to the working-class in that community. With the manufacturing sector of our economy all but gone, there are no quality jobs left in the USA. These people probably had no choice but to serve as WalMart brown-shirts. I hope that a few had tears in their eyes as they did their master's bidding.
When I was growing up you had to be careful about imported dishes from Mexico. Now the problem is China. How come we haven't moved forward with this kind of crap?
And until Americans rise up and use their spending power to send a message to those who would abuse our previously pretty good system---(pre-George Bush)---chid safety will be in the hands of the big corporations.
I might think of doing something like this myself. In fact, I have sabotaged a couple of things in stores, none so important as what Buddy Childress destroyed. There was a tabloid 'newspaper', with a picture of a woman, naked, leaning back, with her legs spread open, sitting in a newspaper bin in a long line of them, some with legitimate papers. Her crotch had an oval black protective covering over it. It was at the level of a small child's eyes. It was in front of the Coop plant nursery on Shattuck Ave. I walked by it many times, angry, until I finally brought an indelible marker and wrote in large letters: Sexist Bullshit! on the plastic see-through covering of the box. (Sure, I might have tried to go through legitimate levels of bureaucracy -- but I didn't; I guess I thought that if the powers-that-be allowed it to be put there they wouldn't listen anyway.) I think I did it a second time. Finally, the box with the papers was removed. Also, I hid a copy of 'Psycho' at the video store, well-hidden, so that more women would not be traumatized by the slasher/shower scene. -- The statute of limitations for these crimes of mine has long since been up.
I just wish Buddy had not gone back into the store with those Walmart creeps and had to endure being walked out in handcuffs. I do respect that he called the cops and made it a 'civil disobedience' issue. Of course as many of those dangerous lamps as possible should have been, and should be, destroyed. Buddy's logic is entirely reasonable, down the line. I do hope he can pass around copies of this article to his friends and family and also that it gets into his local newspaper. I'd like to see more people write here to support him.
From a long-time psychotherapist.
One small quibble regarding "a product called 'The Dora Explorer Lamp,' made in China".
I think it's unfair to imply that the lamp is dangerous because it was made in China (why else include that detail?). The danger of this product was due to a fundamental design issue, not in the quality of the manufacture.
According to W.A.T.C.H., the Dora Explorer lamp is distributed by a company called "Funhouse". I could not find a website for this company, but I think it is likely an American firm, not Chinese. If so, a Chinese factory simply manufactured this product according to the specifications of Funhouse, who were responsible for designing, marketing and distributing it.