The Customs and Excise Department is investigating into in case in which a battery-operated bubble gun (a toy producing streams of bubbles when playing) is suspected of posing potential hazards.
Around noon today (February 8), officers from the Consumer Protection and Prosecution Bureau seized 190 toy bubble guns from a stall at the Lunar New Year Fair in Victoria Park following a series of operations on toy safety.
The Customs and Excise Department, having consulted the Government Laboratory, concluded that the toy had failed to comply with the statutory safety requirements for toys in that the toy possessed accessible, potentially hazardous sharp wire in the mouth piece, and that potentially hazardous sharp point of the spring-like wires (the antenna part) became accessible after a tension test.
The spokesman said that Customs investigation is continuing.
Customs believed that the toys were procured from nearby areas outside Hong Kong. Investigations showed that about 300 pieces of the toy bubble guns had been sold at the Lunar New Year Fair in Victoria Park.
Under the Toys and Children's Products Safety Ordinance, it is an offence to supply, manufacture or import unsafe toys into Hong Kong.
The maximum penalty for the offence is a fine of $100,000 and an imprisonment for one year on first conviction, and $500,000 and two years imprisonment on subsequent conviction.
Ends/Tuesday, February 8, 2005