Honorable Robert Bunda

President of the Senate

Twenty-Second State Legislature

Regular Session of 2004

State of Hawaii

Sir:

Your Committee on Human Services, to which was referred S.B. No. 2168 entitled:

begs leave to report as follows:

The purpose of this measure is to establish a used crib safety program for children under the age of three that sets standards and provides penalties and remedies.

Testimony in favor of the measure was submitted by Healthy Mothers, Healthy Babies Coalition of Hawaii.

Your Committee finds that there is a need to provide safety standards and govern the sale and use of secondhand cribs for infants and toddlers in Hawaii. Parents and families are often not aware of safety standards for cribs and older cribs can present many dangers to children, including strangulation and suffocation. Currently, there are unsafe cribs in secondary markets, like thrift stores and resale furniture stores. This population at risk must be protected.

Your Committee has amended this measure by making technical, nonsubstantive amendments.

As affirmed by the record of votes of the members of your Committee on Human Services that is attached to this report, your Committee is in accord with the intent and purpose of S.B. No. 2168, as amended herein, and recommends that it pass Second Reading in the form attached hereto as S.B. No. 2168, S.D. 1, and be referred to the Committee on Judiciary and Hawaiian Affairs.