California puts big-box safety on the books - Brief Article

Home Channel News, Nov 5, 2001

SACRAMENTO, CALIF. -- Just hours before an Oct. 15 deadline, California Gov. Gray Davis signed a slew of bills into law, including Senate Bill 486, which mandates measures designed to protect customers shopping in retail warehouse stores.

The law dictates that any merchandise stored 12 feet or higher on store shelves must be secured by rails, fencing, netting, cables or other binding materials. Safety zones must also be established that keep customers from entering areas where heavy machinery is used to move merchandise and materials.

All working warehouses and stores will have to comply with the provisions no later than July 1, 2002.

In addition, for the next two years, storeowners, managers or operators who employ more than 50 people are required to submit to the state Division of Occupational Safety and Health a report of all known injuries requiring hospitalization or deaths occurring to customers as a result of falling merchandise.

State Sen. Jackie Speier, D-San Francisco, introduced the bill earlier this year after reviewing hundreds of court cases in which customers were killed or hurt by falling merchandise. In a letter to Davis, she highlighted the deaths that occurred in big-box stores.

"All along we've said it's a common sense bill," said Richard Steffen, Speier's staff director. "Obviously we're really pleased he signed it. It was one of those bills we weren't too sure about."

Indeed, a second store safety bill never made it to Davis' desk. It was a victim of a crowded legislative agenda, California's worsening economy and the state's ongoing energy crisis.

That bill, introduced in February by Sen. Richard Alacorn, D-San Fernando Valley, called for $150,000 to fund a study of safety risks in warehouse stores during earthquakes. The bill never made it out of the Senate's appropriations committee.

A company spokesperson at Home Depot said that passage of the bill may not force that large of an overhaul to a store-safety system already in place in the retailer's 146 California stores.

"We're in compliance with some of those things already," said Don Harrison, Home Depot's public-relations manager. "We're still studying what the governor approved because we don't want to misinterpret anything. Our job is to be in compliance."

All of the chain's stores currently mandate zones of safety, or areas where customers are not permitted while heavy equipment is being operated. Also, noncustomer-oriented tasks, such as stocking shelves and moving merchandise, are conducted during after-store hours as part of the retailer's service performance initiative.