- SACRAMENTO, Calif. (Reuters)
- California's attorney general on Friday filed suit against five grocery
chains including supermarket giants Kroger Co. and Albertson's Inc. for
failing to properly warn consumers about the risk of mercury in fish.
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- Attorney General Bill Lockyer's lawsuit in state court
seeks to force the grocers, who also include Safeway Inc., Whole Foods
Inc. and Trader Joe's, to warn customers that tuna, swordfish and shark
sold in their markets contain the metallic-element linked to cancer and
birth defects.
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- Lockyer alleges the markets have violated Proposition
65, a California ballot initiative approved in 1986 that requires businesses
to provide "clear and reasonable" warnings before exposing people
to known carcinogens and reproductive toxins.
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- "Consumers deserve to know when they are being exposed
to chemicals that can cause birth defects, and reproductive harm,"
Lockyer said in a statement. "Public health agencies have advised
pregnant women not to eat swordfish and shark because those fish contain
relatively high levels of mercury."
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- Representatives from Albertson's, Kroger, Safeway and
Whole Foods could not immediately be reached. A spokeswoman for Trader
Joe's declined to comment.
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- The lawsuit asks the San Francisco Superior Court to
prohibit the stores from selling the fish until they post the required
warning. The complaint does not cover canned tuna, only fresh tuna.
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- The state also seeks civil penalties for violations of
Proposition 65 and the state's Unfair Competition Act, which together make
the defendant liable for civil penalties of up to $2,500 per day for each
violation. The complaint alleges the violations date back to 1988.
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- Comment
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- From Jim
- 1-23-3
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- If the attorney general is so shocked!...shocked!...that
these supermarkets were endangering public health by failing to properly
warn consumers about the risk of mercury in fish, one would question why
"the complaint alleges the violations date back to 1988."
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- Thus, the lawyers hired by the supermarket chains could
defend themselves by citing the state with dereliction of duty, or failing
to inform the supermarkets that they should have posted signs to warn customers.
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- But it shouldn't take an Einstein to see what's happening
here. The state of California has a 35 billion dollar deficit, and one
of the ways they intend to balance the books is by the creation of new
"lawbreakers".
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- The words "billion" and "trillion"
are tossed around nowadays without much analysis to their magnitude. If
a billion dollars is equal to 1,000 millions, California's deficit of $35
billion is equal to 35,000 millions of dollars, a staggering sum by any
standard which will require the state to muster up a hell of a lot of lawbreakers.
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- At $2,500 per day fine per supermarket retro to 1988,
the state thinks it could make a big dent in balancing this deficit. Of
course it's a quick fix mentality because these stores would either have
to pass along the cost to angry consumers or suddenly "go out of business"
and open a few weeks later as new chains (preferably something nostalgic
like "The New Great Atlantic and Pacific"). Thus the state would
get nothing for their efforts.
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- During the three week "renovation period" there
may be a lot of hungry customers, but with the proper PR these markets
could even twist this resulting wrath back onto the state as some kind
of an "ad hoc adviso".
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