Philadelphia Weekly

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Philly artisans worry the federal government will put them out of business.

The handmade wooden cars that Frank Burkhauser sells in his Pine Street shop will not poison your children. He's sure of it.

"It's wood and some mineral oils," says Burkhauser, who owns Spirit of the Artist, a store selling a wide array of crafts. "I happen to know it's safe, whether it's tested or not. It's wood and finish. They can eat it if they want."

Burkhauser's toys probably won't appear on a kids' menu anytime soon. But he and numerous other Philadelphia artisans are worried that new federal testing rules designed to protect children will end up forcing them to give up making toys, bibs, sweaters and other handmade items for children--leaving the entertainment and clothing of American youth entirely in the hands of big corporations.

"There's panic in the market already," Burkhauser says.

That panic was created by the new Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act (CPSIA), a federal law passed last year in the wake of safety scandals involving Chinese-made products. The act requires that all products created for children--including books, clothes and wooden toys--undergo testing and certification for toxic substances such as lead and phthalate.

What's more, the rules apply both to big businesses and the "mompreneurs" making bibs to sell on Etsy. Mattel can afford to pay $550 to test a toy; for Philly's community of knitters, woodworkers and other artisans--as well as the stores, like Burkhauser's, that sell their goods--that same cost could be a deal breaker.

"There's fear in the buyers because the buyers think they're gonna have to pull out in the future," Burkhauser says.

The crafters have already received one break. Facing an uproar over the requirements, the Consumer Product Safety Commission has issued a "stay of enforcement," meaning the new rules--which were set to go into effect this month--won't be enforced until Feb. 10, 2010.

That leaves the craft community uncertain about what's next.

"There's been some attorneys general who say they intend to enforce the law," says Kathleen Fasanella, author of the book The Entrepreneur's Guide to Sewn Product Manufacturing. "We don't know how stringent they're going to be."

But there is an opportunity to make the law work for everybody, she says, including consumers. She and many other industry insiders believe that the responsibility of testing for lead and phthalate should lie with the suppliers of raw materials.

"A lot of suppliers already certify their products, so we would like to be able to use our vendors' third-party certifications. And right now, we're not allowed to do that, which doesn't make sense," Fasanella says.

"If you make pajamas, you have to comply with flammability rules for kids, and we're allowed to use certifications from fabric vendors for flammability. So we're just saying it makes sense to do that with lead and phthalate testing as well."