They want statewide ban on their sale
 
By Mike Linn
Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
 
PINE BLUFF, Ark. — They look like monkeys, alligators, dice, race cars, butterflies, toy guns and boxing gloves.

To a child's eye, firefighters say, they're pretty irresistible. But these little novelty lighters are full of liquid butane, and firefighters say, they can cause disaster in the hands of little ones.

On Monday night, the Pine Bluff City Council unanimously voted to become at least the fifth city in the state since August to ban sale of the toylike lighters, a decision that critics say is an example of a government trying to play the role of parent.

The statewide fire safety initiative — which began after the North Little Rock City Council voted to ban sale of the lighters on Aug. 13 — is on pace to continue as fire departments in Little Rock, Benton, Van Buren, Malvern, Mountain Home, Fort Smith and Clarksville have considered or are considering similar proposals, according to Lt. Mark Shoemaker of the North Little Rock Fire Department.

Besides Pine Bluff and North Little Rock, the cities of Searcy, Bryant and Sherwood have already voted to ban sale of the products, said Shoemaker, who has helped spearhead the movement for a statewide ban.

North Little Rock became the third American city to ban the lighters behind National City and Redlands in California, according to the Oregon Office of State Fire Marshal, which is keeping tabs on cities that ban novelty lighters.

The Clarksville City Council on Monday night will also consider a ban on the lighters.

"I'd love to see every city do it because it would make it that much easier to get a statewide ban passed through the Legislature during the next session," Shoemaker said Tuesday. "For children, they can't decide the difference between a toy car and a car that is a lighter. It's not to punish anybody who smokes and it's not to do away with all lighters by any means. It's just for the children who aren't able to make that choice." On Sept. 25, two toddlers died in a Russellville apartment fire after playing with a novelty lighter that looked like a toy motorcycle and shot flames out the bike's tailpipe, according to Capt. Richard Setian, the Russellville fire marshal.

The toddlers, Breydon Edwards, 2, and Peyton Edwards, 1, were playing with the toylike lighter while their mother, Miranda Edwards, was sleeping in the living room.

Pine Bluff Alderman Thelma Walker said the story of the children's deaths was a major factor in her decision to propose the ordinance, which will be enforced after Dec. 5.

The ordinance says that any retail sale or distribution of any novelty lighter in the city is off-limits, although it is not illegal to carry one. Violators, if convicted, would be subject to fines ranging from $25 to $500, the ordinance says.

One businessman who owns two independent cigarette shops in Pine Bluff said the new law could cost him upward of $10,000 in lost revenue.

Paul Hutson, owner of Paul's Discount Tobacco off Dollarway Road and Paul's Tobacco Hut in the Watson Chapel area, said he has 4,000 novelty lighters in stock that he'll try to sell by Dec. 5 by cutting prices from the original $5.99 or so a lighter.

Unlike a pack of cigarettes, which turns a 7.5 percent profit, Hutson said novelty lighters make a dollar profit for every dollar he spends on them.

He said he wasn't given adequate time to voice his opposition to the ordinance, which passed the same day it was introduced after the City Council suspended the rules and read the ordinance three times Monday. Typically, an ordinance is read once on the night it is introduced, a second time at the next council meeting and a third time at another meeting, giving residents a month to voice opposition.

Moreover, Hutson said the parents are to blame when children get hold of lighters or anything dangerous.

"I'm not selling lighters to kids under 18," he said. "You know as well as I do that if you leave anything on a table, a kid is going to play with it. I don't care if it's a box of rocks, a ball of yarn, a handgun. You can't blame it on the lighter," he added. "It's the parents' responsibility." Ryan Hogan, a Pine Bluff resident who was at another business Tuesday that sells novelty lighters, called the ordinance "ridiculous." "They banned novelty lighters but they let the ice cream man sell bubblegum in the shape of a cigarette?" Hogan said at The Hut on Cherry Street. "That's why my son is trying to eat my cigarettes." The manager of The Hut, Michael Walters, had a different opinion.

"It doesn't hurt my feelings one way or the other if they outlaw novelty lighters," said Walters, who only has about a dozen novelty lighters left for sale. "They are dangerous for children." The initiative in Arkansas has been labeled a model by officials at the Oregon Office of State Fire Marshal, who hope the group's statistics will persuade the U.S. Consumer Protection Safety Commission to either ban or slow imports of novelty lighters into the United States.

"Arkansas is well ahead of the curve on this, and unfortunately it took the deaths of those two children to put them over the top," said Carol Baumann, training and development specialist with the Oregon Office of State Fire Marshal. "We're proud of Arkansas."

Copyright 2007 Little Rock Newspapers, Inc.