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Major Initiatives:

Your Kid's Health:

Can You Trust Your Paint and Pesticide Store?

IKE 2005 Retail Store Survey

III.    Recommendations

The significant improvements since 2004 for hardware stores clearly demonstrate that they can do better.  Store managers often complain of training problems due to high-turnover.  However, IKE encountered the same clerks in April 2005 as in March 2004 at several stores.   Based on IKE’s experience, the stores will not change their unsafe practices until store management makes it a priority for clerks.  They must hold clerks accountable for the advice they give.

IKE has seen the best results when local or regional management make the issue a priority and receive corporate support.  While the message is relatively simple, it takes diligence and consistency.  That is clearly the key to success for Porter Paints. 

While the chains may claim that customer demand is the best means to bring about change, IKE’s experience is that it does not.  It may help at one store and one clerk but not across the system.  The reality is that store managers respond most effectively to negative media exposure and, when they violate the law, civil fines.

It is important to note that IKE has set very low standards for stores in this survey.  IKE is not asking for much – don’t give advice that would cause a customer to commit a Class D felony, don’t violate the pesticide laws, and make basic educational information available to customers.

Therefore, IKE makes the following recommendations.

Retail Hardware Store Owners and Operators

While the survey was conducted in retail stores that serve Indianapolis, IKE believes the problem on bad advice and product selection is national is widespread across the nation.  Because of IKE’s previous surveys, IKE has reason to believe tndianapolis’ retail stores that sell paint and pesticides perform significantly better than other areas of the country.  The performance of Wal-Mart and Sears may be more typical.

Therefore, IKE recommends that all stores owners and operators do the following:

·                    If your employees give customer advice, ensure that they are trained and competent to give accurate, safe and legal advice.  Clerks are usually hired because they communicate well with customers. Hardware stores have a responsibility to make sure they communicate accurately as well.  Customers depend on their advice to complete the projects. 

·                    Stock the supplies a customer needs to work safely with lead-based paint hazards.

·                    Follow the advice of the National Paint and Coatings Association and make the EPA pamphlet "Protect Your Family from Lead Hazards" available in English and Spanish at no cost to all customers.

·                    Make the outstanding “Lead Paint Safety Field Guide for Painting, Home Maintenance, and Renovation Work” by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD Field Guide) available to customers and clerks for sale or for reference. 

·                    Require that clerks read the HUD Field Guide and the EPA pamphlet and be tested to confirm they know the material;

·                    Require managers and other employees of the paint department to complete awareness training on lead-based paint and lead-safe work practices – possibly through the free retailer training NPCA is offering on-line at www.leadsafetraining.org/npca/ or by attending one of their free contractor-focused classes being offered throughout the country.

·                    Comply with Indiana’s pesticide consultant rules and provide customer advice that is safest for children’s health.

Store Customers

Until the hardware stores decide to take control of the problem, customers should:

·                    Shop smarter.  Give your business to the chains that take the health of your kids seriously.  Shop stores that score well and make the stores that don’t aware that they are losing business.

·                    Beware.  Don’t trust the advice you get from your store clerk until the stores take responsibility for their employees. 

·                    Demand more.  Insist that stores train their clerks and recommend the use of lead-safe work practices and the supplies to implement those practices in the store.

·                    Provide feedback to the stores through their website’s customer service line.  Go to www.ikecoalition.org/Stores/Toolkit_Feedback.htm for links and instructions.

·                    If in Indiana, file complaints with the Office of the Indiana State Chemist when pesticide advice is given without a warning sign present or when you believe the advice is dangerous.  Contact 800-893-6637 or see details for filing a complaint under the “Pesticide Section” at www.isco.purdue.edu.

·                    Provide IKE with the results of your visit by entering your experiences – good or bad – on IKE’s website at www.ikecoalition.org/stores. 

·                    Contact Improving Kids’ Environment at 317-442-3973 or stores@ikecoalition.org if you have questions or concerns about a hardware store’s response to your questions about lead-based paint, pesticides or other environmental hazards.

Community Health Advocates

Advocates who want to improve community health should reproduce the survey in their own community.  Based on IKE’s survey, it will take an organized effort to motivate stores to improve their customer advice.  If the stores perceive that they will be evaluated on a routine basis across the nation, they may accept responsibility for training employees, holding clerks accountable, and providing essential supplies.  IKE has developed a toolkit to help community health advocates conduct their own survey.  Go to www.ikecoalition.org/Stores/Toolkit.htm for more information.  Also, contact Tom Neltner of Improving Kids’ Environment at 317-442-3973 or mccabe@ikecoalition.org for more information