Popular toys and those from an earlier era have encountered a screening problem at nationwide thrift stores. Photo by: Courtesy to the Ledger Dispatch Lynne Standard, manager of the Hospice of Amador and Calaveras Thrift Store, holds a sign up announcing that the children's section is being converted to a seasonal area. New safety laws have prompted the store to discontinue selling children's toys and clothing. Photo by: Scott Thomas Anderson

There are no toys on the shelves at the Hospice of Amador and Calaveras Thrift Store. Looking around, customers find no bicycles, no kid-size beds, no strollers, no books with plastic pop-ups. They also find no clothing for children under the age of 12.

The federal government's new Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act, which went into effect just 18 days ago, has made it difficult for thrift stores across the United States to sell any children's items at all. Yet, according to local thrift store managers and employees, business has never been better.

The CPSIA Act made it through Congress during 2008 as toxic toys from China were causing a widespread public panic. The legislation is designed to safeguard children under the age of 12 from exposure to most hazardous materials.

For many thrift stores that make their money by selling donated items and hand-me-downs, the cost of testing incoming items to make sure they conform to the new regulations - which include screening for lead, phthalates and other toxins - is simply too high. Two weeks ago, the hospice thrift store sent out a letter to its customers explaining it would no longer sell any children's items of any kind because the testing equipment required to do so would cost in excess of $30,000.

"The cost of doing it now is too prohibitive," said Lynne Standard, the store's manager. Standard admits there are serious questions and concerns among thrift store managers across the nation about how the CPSIA Act will be enforced. Nevertheless, her store isn't taking any chances while kinks in the regulations are being ironed out.

"Because hospice insists on a high standard of honesty and integrity, we feel we should be in full compliance with the law," she said. "We've been careful in the past not to sell recalled toys and other items we believed could be toxic, but we're going to follow the new law exactly as it's written, which means we can't sell any children's items. It's something we're sorry to have to do to customers in the economic downturn."

In general, the recession has continued to be a gold mine for Amador County's thrift stores. Standard confirmed that her store's business has soared as the nation's financial crisis deepens.

"Sales are way up," she said. "Donations are down, but that's normal for this time of year." She added that toys and other children's items had only accounted for 5 percent of hospice's overall revenue.

Jackson's On A Mission Thrift Store has also seen a boom in popularity among local consumers. "Business has been up all year," observed Rebecca Maciolek, a store employee. "It's been even better lately."

On A Mission is still selling some children's items for the moment, though Maciolek pointed out that the store's management and staff were currently looking into how the new CPSIA Act might affect them.

"There's some confusion among re-sellers in general about how the law applies to thrift stores specifically," Maciolek said. "I know it's something were exploring."

That confusion might be avoided altogether if Congress passes yet another piece of legislation called The Thrift Store Protection Act (H.R. 1027). That bill is meant to help struggling Americans with their shopping by making thrift stores exempt from the new CPSIA regulations. The National Association of Retail Thrift Stores is currently urging anyone who's concerned about thrift stores losing their ability to sell toys and children's clothes to contact their congressional representatives about supporting H.R. 1027.

The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, meanwhile, lists hundreds of toy recalls due to various hazards. The latest occurred Feb. 25, when the commission and Commerce-based company, CBB Group Inc., announced the recall of 39,000 units of fishing games, baby rattles and pull-a-long cars that contain small parts deemed choking hazards. The company's mini pull back cars and bubble guns have surface paints that contain excessive levels of lead, according to the commission, violating the federal lead paint standard.