🚀 go-pugleaf

CALUMET, Pa. - A small Mt. Pleaasnt Township, Westmoreland
County, factory that produces minature soldiers has emerged victorious
in a battle to overturn a New York ban on the distribution and sale of
its product.
New York State Supreme Court Justice Edward Spain has lifted the ban
on lead minature soldiers, ruling that the sale and distribution of the
figurines did not constitute a health danger to the public.
Spain's ruling clears the way for retailers to immediately resume
selling the toy soldiers in New York.
Russ Dunaway, owner of Old Glory Manufacturing Inc. located in the
village of Calumet, is delighted with the decision.
"Obviously, reason ruled," Dunaway said Saturday when he heard the
news.
Earlier last week, 12 employees of Old Glory sent depositions to be
entered as evidence at a hearing in Albany, N.Y. In their statements,
the employees attested to the safety of their product -- minature
soldiers which contain about 60 percent tin and 40 percent lead.
The Old Glory employees, who are tested for lead levels every six
months, also sent copies of blood tests taken at an area hospital.
"We never have high lead, never," Dunaway said.
The company was challenging an order issued Dec. 2 by New York Health
Commissioner Dr. Mark R. Chassin, who banned the sale of minature toy
soldiers containing lead.
Chassin claimed the replicas could cause lead poisoning in children.
However, Chassin's department admitted that none of the thousands of
lead poisoning cases it handles annually has ever been linked to
minature soldiers.
The Mt. Pleasant Township company can manufacture about 20,000
figures a day, sculpted in vivid detail. The unfinished figures are then
sent to hobby shops to be sold to collectors who hand paint and decorate
them.
Old Glory is currently finalizing a new line of figures from the
French and Indian War, based on the movie, "Last of the Mohicans."