Cap gun firms say restrictions on noise will blow them away

Date: 05/04/01

By Peter Chapman

EU GOVERNMENTS are looking to take the bang out of toy guns - but they may have to face a legal shootout with industry first.

Austria, Germany and Sweden are leading a group of member states that claim current Union rules setting the noise levels for cap pistols at 140 decibels are not stringent enough - and could lead to injury if children fire a pistol in their ear or that of a playmate.

They have threatened to use the 'safeguard clause' in EU toy legislation, which allows them to ban products they fear might be dangerous, if the rules are not strengthened.

This has forced the European Commission to accept a tougher new limit of 125 decibels.

But industry experts say stricter noise standards are not needed and will lead to thousands of job losses. Manufacturers and toy experts at the Union standards committee CEN claim there is no medical evidence to support the move.

Edgar Twer, managing director of Sohni-Wicke, one of two German manufacturers of toy pistols and caps, says the new standard, which will be valid from 1 August, would result in the closure of his 54-worker company and could lead to 5,000 job losses in other firms in France, Italy and Spain. "It is not possible to adapt the caps," he said. "They won't have enough in there to make a bang. We are on the lowest limit. If we go any further we are finished."

Twer says his company has given the Commission reports by army acoustic experts showing there is no danger to children but these have been ignored.

He says he is now considering a legal challenge to the Commission's decision "to bow to the political pressure" from member states.

"I have two lawyers working on it," he said. "We could fight this in the European Courts."

Ian Scott, a toy safety expert for the British Standards Institute, says a majority at CEN's meetings in Brussels support a less onerous standard close to the US norm - to no avail.

This would have cut noise levels to 134 decibels at 50 centimetres' distance and would have been accompanied by a safety warning.

The 125-decibel standard was actually foreseen when the 140-decibel norm was agreed in 1998.

But Scott claims it was understood that the changeover, time-tabled for this summer, would be conditional on the supply of clear proof that it was both necessary and possible.

Austria, Germany and Sweden are leading a group pf Member States that claim current Union rules setting the noise levels for cap pistols at 140 decibels are not stringent enough.