Encouraged by the passage of a law requiring chain restaurants in New York City to display calorie information for food and beverages, Councilman Domenic Recchia has introduced a bill that would require store owners to post signs or labels warning parents about bite-size foods that pose a choking hazard for children under the age of five.
Recchia tells the Sun he was motivated to do something after a 2-year-old boy in his district died in 2007 from suffocating on a grape: "A lot of parents don't have any idea what choking hazards are. They would never think of a grape as dangerous. Do you know how many parents don't know that popcorn can choke a child?"
It's generally recommend that parents skin and slice grapes for children under the age of four. According to Recchia, the city's Department of Health and Mental Hygiene would compile the list of foods requiring labels, which would likely include grapes, peanuts, chewing gum, small hard candies, and candy necklaces. If the passed into law, store owners could face a $250 fine for noncompliance. Unsurprisingly, a lobbyist for the Neighborhood Retail Alliance, Richard Lipsky, calls the bill "overly burdensome."
add to digg
add to stumble upon
add to reddit
email this
add to facebook
add to del.icio.us
Do you know how many parents don't know that popcorn can choke a child?"Do you know how many parents don't know that popcorn can choke a child?"
The same number of parents that shouldn't have children?
They should seriously draft a bill so that only educated people can procreate. Oh yeah, educated and hott. No uggos. oh wait, we need labor for the menial jobs, never mind.
Welcome to the nanny state.
Maybe we can pass a bill requiring Domenic Recchia to get a real job.
Why not pass a bill that states that the food you consume could possibly give you diarrhea?
Wouldn't it be better to send a booklet full o' warnings to all new parents? Then the parents could be fined for feeding grapes to their kids and killing them.
"Why not pass a bill that states that the food you consume could possibly give you diarrhea?"
WHAT?? is that true? i didn't know that.
hey, why is my chair suddenly wet...& warm?
Damn, term limits are a b-tch. These knuckleheads need press-time to get their do-nothing butts into another job. Yes, Councilperson. Every grape should have a warning label. As should a watermelon. Oh, and don't forget Oreos. How could they not place a warning on each cookie in bold print, in multiple languages (don't forget Urdu & Sanskrit, gotta protect those kiddies!)? General notice to parents: Kids can choke on/ingest/slice their carotids with/fall from/burn themselves/cause to explode ANYTHING! Evolution is against young childrens' survival. Parents must spend every moment protecting them from themselves. I'm lucky i survived with only healable injuries. Does anyone "skitch" on the back bumpers of cars/buses after a snow storm any more, etc?
Stop labeling everything. Kids can't read. neither can many parents. Being a kid can kill you. Accept it & take good care of them.
I strongly believe that only seedless grapes should be grown. Since the introduction of seedless watermelons studies have shown there is a drop in death rates among black children. (If you want those results I am sure some federally sponsored university study will come up with them.)
ARE THESE PEOPLE NUTS! GET REAL!
Children under ten years of age should not eat any fruits with pits or seeds period. There are not pits or seeds in a McDonald's Big Mac.
my drug dealer recently started posting disclaimers outside his alley: Warning the substance you are about to consume has been dilluted wiht X-Lax, make sure you have access to a toilet.
Hopefully they will apply these same warnings to the election ballots: "Caution, electing these idiots could result in a whole lot of useless legislation, wasted tax dollars, and oh yeah, you'll have to listen to their lame plea's for free press."
Anyone that thinks this is a good idea is, by definition, retarded.
Pat Kiernan enjoyed this story on NY1 this morning. He said, "Hey, you can choke on hotdogs and grapes if you don't chew them. Now you know. There's your warning."
I >heart
I'm on a roll!
Warning: Living May Result in Death
I agree with Emily Dickenson! A kid can choke on just about anything!
First we bred a generation of idiot parents by not teaching them how to be good parents, and now they're breeding a generation of idiots who don't know how to eat, or rollerskate, or go up and down escalators, or even cross a street properly. It's like everybody is becoming Homer Simpson!
It's like everybody is becoming Homer Simpson!
scary but true...
Homer is good people. What is the problem here?
I think there should be a warning label tattooed on lawyers forheads: "Warning: contents may create fear, loss of sense of personal responsibility, inability to accept the fact that you are a Klutz/shouldn't be allowed to touch sharp things/hot things/anything, Shouldn't drink/drive/climb/smoke/eat/walk/stand/walk/sit/anything. Continued exposure has been shown to create delusions of persecution and inflated self worth, and can lead to higher prices for all with the inability for everyone to enjoy life without being paranoid, etc."
Sorry, their heads are too small (physically).
Any time someone says "there aught to be a law!", they're wrong.
The onus shouldn't be on store owners to display signage, but on the product manufacturers. Grapes should come with a warning, as should popcorn and other possible choking hazards. It's not up to the retailer to display warning signs about plastic bags, so why should it apply to other "hazardous" goods. I'm not a parent, but I've been a babysitter & swim instructor for years & I feel parents should be required to take a basic first aid/CPR course just like any "professional" they'd entrust their child to.
"Do you know how many parents don't know that popcorn can choke a child?"
Do you know how many adults don't know how to chew and are more likely to choke to death than children?
all match sticks should have a warning label:
Fire Hot.
I seriously hope that the idiots who thought this was necessary are voted out of office. How much time and money are going to be wasted on this? I think studies have shown that when you overuse warning labels, people tend to stop seeing them, including ones that might really matter. Just like car alarms.
What? There are zillions of books with this sort of information? The hell you say.
We don't need these idiots in our gene pool. Let evolution do its job.