Two Tweed Heads retailers have been fined more than $3,000 for selling a range of dangerous toys.
Super Saver Variety Stores and FDBs Tweed Heads, both of which are owned by the company Mysterious Investments Pty Ltd, have been found selling toys with parts so small they could be swallowed or that constitute a projectile or strangulation hazard.
One toy, a liquid filled yo-yo ball had already been banned, according to Fair Trading.
Other items that caught the Office’s attention included: a toy piano with small parts, a bow and arrow set, a wooden duck rattle and similar cow rattle, both of which had tiny parts that could potentially be inhaled.
The yo-yo ball posed a strangulation hazard.
NSW Fair Trading Commissioner Rod Stowe said more than $100,000 in fines and costs had been handed out by the courts to 17 discount toy sellers so far this year and warned that Fair Trading was preparing to start a pre-Christmas blitz across the state to ensure that products on sale met Australian safety standards.
He added that 15 of the 17 sellers had been fined before by Fair Trading and six had been taken to court.
‘Non-compliant toys have the potential to do serious harm to young children,’ Mr Stowe said.
‘Dangerous toys can cause young children to choke or stop breathing if small breakable parts are ingested and non-compliant projectile toys can cause serious eye and other injuries.
‘It is not good enough for traders to say they are not aware of, or do not understand, the Australian Consumer Law that mandates all toys meet stringent Australian safety standards.
‘It is the trader’s responsibility to be across these laws and Fair Trading has an interpreter service for anyone who needs help in another language.’
Mr Stowe said Fair Trading would be clamping down on repeat offenders in the future by seeking Supreme Court injunctions to prevent the continued sale of non-compliant and dangerous toys.
