Now this is a real stickup!I remember when my son was maybe 5 or 6 we took him and a friend to Knott's Berry Farm for his birthday. Both boys bought replica rifles and had a grand time running around "shooting" stuff. The rifles were clearly toys, but were in realistic wood and steel colors. He may still have it somewhere in his room.
The owner of a discount store in Brooklyn says the city is holding him up for $30,000 in fines he can’t afford — all because he stocked six toy sheriff sets that included plastic guns.
And now the .44-caliber fines for the orange-tipped, obvious fakes are forcing him to close for good.
“It doesn’t make any sense,” said Khaled Mohamed, 23, manager of 99¢ Target in Flatlands, which has been ordered to pay a staggering $5,000 fine for each gun offered for sale — the maximum under the law.
The store “cannot pay that fine at all,” said Mohamed, arguing that the punishment imposed on the Utica Avenue odds-and-ends shop is way out of proportion to the violation.
“They’re stopping us from doing any business,” he said.
The store’s lawyer, Andrew Tilem, doesn’t dispute that 99¢ Target was in violation of a city regulation that makes it illegal to sell toy weapons that look too real.
The rule is designed to prevent cops from mistaking the toys for the real thing — and shooting an innocent kid — and to thwart criminals from using them to commit crimes.
Retailers can get around the law by making sure the toy guns are brightly colored.
The last time I was at Knott's they had the same guns, but now they're painted an awful orange or green. There's no way I'd buy that crap for my kid. The nanny state has done its best to take the fun out of childhood. There have been a few incidents of toys being mistaken for real guns, but they're very few and not worth all the angst the anti-gun crowd has thrown at this little issue.
If I have a grandson someday I won't waste time buying him an orange toy gun. I'll just get him the real thing and teach him how to safely use it.
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"...a city regulation that makes it illegal to sell toy weapons that look too real."
Who's the judge of that? Is each and every toy required to be submitted for government approval? Are approved toys required to have a permanently affixed label "This toy approved for sale in the great city of New York, NY, USA by order of the Honorable Michael R. Bloomberg, Mayor"?
Is there ANYTHING in this country that isn't regulated by these NAZIs anymore?
Considering NYPD turned a guy into swiss cheeze a couple years ago when he pulled a wallet out of his back pocket, are New Yorkers required to have wallets that are brightly colored too?
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