GOING CRACKERS
Explosive Christmas surprise
Did you hear the one about the Christmas cracker that got caught up with the law? It was arrested for being a fizzer.
The appalling jokes inside will remain, but at least some of this year’s Christmas crackers won’t crack with a bang because they fall under a long-standing law that seems to have trapped at least one retailer.
The issue is that Christmas crackers - as well as caps for cap guns and party poppers - are seen as explosives under the Hazardous Substances (Tracking) Regulations and need special permission to enter New Zealand.
To Khandallah’s Viv Chapple, who has made her own Christmas crackers for 25-odd years, the ordeal was a ‘‘wonderful example of the law of unintended consequences’’.
She went to Spotlight in Wellington to get some strips-that-go-bang - or Christmas snaps, as they are known in the craft world - and was told she would not be getting any.
‘‘The kind woman said, ‘oh I don’t think we will be selling them this year - it is something to do with the Firearms Act’.’’
Indeed, Stuff followed in her footsteps to Spotlight at the bottom of the Ngaio Gorge and was told that, yes indeed, a law meant they were unavailable this year. Spotlight’s head office did not respond to a request for comment.
However, other retailers around the Wellington region were selling the same products.
The Environmental Protection Authority’s (EPA) website sheds some light on the situation. Novelty explosives - including party poppers, Christmas crackers, Christmas snaps, Christmas bon-bons, and ring caps for cap guns - were all explosives and covered under the Hazardous Substances and New Organisms Act.
Approval under that act is needed to import them, but first EPA needed to grant an ‘‘explosives import certificate’’.
Back in her Khandallah home, Chapple did manage to track down some snaps from another craft store.
EPA spokesman Michael Pearson said poppers fall under the same testing and sale requirements as fireworks.