Buying A Counterfeit Designer Bag Could Soon Land You In Jail Or A $1000 Fine

In this file photo from 2008, Mayor Bloomberg announced the closing of a counterfeit goods store. (Bebeto Matthews/AP)

The city's seemingly futile crackdown on counterfeit designer merchandise could get some new teeth if City Councilwoman Margaret Chin has her way. Chin, whose district includes Chinatown, will introduce legislation this week that would make it illegal to buy knockoffs like bogus Louis Vuitton bags. Guilty buyers could face a year in jail or a $1000 fine if caught, and Chin says the heavy penalty is necessary if the city's going to staunch the flow of ripoff merchandise. But how are buyers supposed to know the purse they're buying from the street peddler is fake, and not just the deal of a lifetime?!

Chin's bill simply posits that buyers should know the goods are counterfeit if they're too cheap and being sold in Chinatown, where the city has dubbed one area along Canal the "Counterfeit Triangle." Chin says she'll put up signs all over the neighborhood warning buyers not to support the bootleggers, and guilty customers could only be fined or arrested if caught in the act. She has support in the City Council for the bill, and tells the Post, "We don't want to be known as the place to come to get counterfeit goods." She's holding a press conference at City Hall today to announce the bill.

On the streets of Chinatown, reaction was mixed. Sandy Lui, manager of Optical 88 on Mott and Hester Street (great place to get eyeglass prescriptions filled!), dreamed of a day when people would stop coming into her store looking for knockoff designer frames. But one Staten Island woman, Christine Gambino, told the Post her fake Louis Vuitton handbag cost her just $40, adding, "I'll take a risk and sacrifice to look good and pay less." And a school teacher from Brooklyn, Erma Charles, made the Department of Education proud by explaining that she buys knockoffs even though she knows it's wrong, because, "Everyone steals."

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By John Del Signore in News on April 26, 2011 12:19 PM

Comments [rss]

Dre4dwolf Marop

I bet half the knock offs are made in the same factory as the real deal.
;P

How about making a crime to sell a hand bag for 5000 or a watch for 7000.

You want people to buy your crap, but you don't want them to buy someone elses crap for less if it looks like your crap.

Half the knock off watches keep better time then their genuine counterparts.

aprilnyc

I once bought a $30 nylon backpack on Canal Street, after I paid for it, they attached a designer logo, even though I asked them not to.
If you want a cheap designer knock off hand bag, go to Payless Shoe stores, similar to what you see on Canal street, and even less expensive.

H S

If a designer bag made in China cost $40 to make and sold on Madison Avenue for $1600 , does anyone get fined for theft?

Fofofofofo

Anyone know where I can get some $5 sunglasses WITHOUT designer logos on them? I want cheap ass disposable sunglasses but I don't want to look a like a choad who buys knockoff Chanel.

Also, if everyone bought quality, there would be no Ikea and no 99 cent stores. I always try to talk people out of buying Ikea cookware.

Peanut_Butter

But a knockoff, and use a nail file to file off the logo.

Fofofofofo

You, sir, are the Sandra Lee of black market goods.

Veronica Flanders

a. Who says carrying the same bag everyone else is looks good?
b. Who cares either way?
c. Bootlegs are sold everywhere in the city. Down by the World Trade Center, the Africans peddle fake designer bags. Around 34th Street, Herald Square more Africans peddle fake designer bags. Seventh Ave, there are fake designer bags being peddled all over. Midtown in the East 50s, fake designer bags are sold. And I won't even get into Harlem...

Therefore, this whole "initiative" is stupid because the bootleggers will just continue to inhabit other areas of the city and hock their wares there...

Peanut_Butter

*hawk
(to sell; esp. to offer for sale by calling out in the street; e.g., hawking newspapers. From the tradition of calling out, as a hawk does, the news.)

To hock is to pawn.

Inconcievable de Impublishable

Add DVDs to the bill, please?

HamsterH

They need to bust the importer not the consumer of the knock off. if they are soooo worried about the $ effect on the original manufacturer... please then tell me where the 700 trillion went.This is why it is important to buy American made only. also ms chin should realize that china is largely responsible for all that knock-off crapola. she should go there and stop it at the source and take one of the kids home that make that stuff
just another way to get their hands in your pockets. you try to make ends meet and the corporate police state controls how you bargain hunt. hello 1984 the state is god.....

pendejito

Newports! Newports! Five dollars!

Fadlo K. Shell

At least where bags and clothing are concerned, the counterfeit and the "legit" goods are often exactly the same--all the way down to the materials used, country of origin, and manufacturing process. The "luxury" brands essentially create empty hype around their products, and then dine on selling them to vain idiots.

Guest

well, whatever you (govt) do, please don't burn the captured-counterfeits this time. that's really asking for God to punish you, even if he/she/they/it doesn't really exist.

Peanut_Butter

Next thing they'll be burning books.

SpideySense

Shouldn't they be going after the merchants? Why are they focusing on the buyer?

SeasTooFarToReach

Who is going to train the cops to distinguish between an original and a fake purse?

"Excuse me, Miss. Is that an authentic Marc Jacobs?"

m_c_nyc

Let's lock up people on bikes, people talking to police, veteran street vendors, anyone with smallest marijuana possession. NY is soon to become police controlled city with no humanity. People are way too quiet and accept all this BS laws.
I love NY but I am happy to be able to take rest from it and go to Europe often.

angel1092

Why would anyone in their right mind waste their hard earned money on a counterfeit bag. They look fake from a mile away. Women carrying them are usually wearing Walmart/Kmart clothing. Now come on. If you can aford a real LV, Kate Spade, Longchamp you would not be wearing Kmart or Walmart.

Mr Mel

I see a bike messenger with a Rolex, I know its a fake. I see a well dressed, well groomed guy with a Rolex and I think its real whether it is or isn't. I know someone that bought a Bulgari sport watch on Canal St for $35. A pin holding the band to the watch broke. She was in Capetown, South Africa when it happened took it into a Bulgari Authorized Dealer and they replaced it.

fivefootmohawk

And let's also fine/arrest people who unknowingly posses counterfeit money because they broke a bill at the local bodega. How about going after the ACTUAL COUNTERFEITERS instead of poor people who won't be able to afford to pay a $1,000 fine anyway? I couldn't guess a real Coach bag from a fake one unless two were placed side by side. You can't expect people to start investigating the legitimacy of a product and then self enforcing the laws we pay taxes for government agencies to do.