Long Island lawn care company fined for West Nile claims
...advertising campaign that claimed its spraying of homeowners’ shrubs and trees would kill mosquitoes carrying the West Nile virus
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Long Island lawn care company fined for West Nile claims
...advertising campaign that claimed its spraying of homeowners’ shrubs and trees would kill mosquitoes carrying the West Nile virus
Subject: LI company fined for West Nile claims-----
Date: Thu, 07 Sep 2000 07:32:44 -0400
From: Stephen Tvedten <steve@getipm.com>
Organization: Get Set Inc. (www.getipm.com)
To: Paul Helliker <phelliker@cdpr.ca.gov>
Director, State of
California, Department of Pesticide Regulation
Dear Mr. Helliker,
I thought you might like to read an article entitled: LI company fined
for West Nile claims.
New York, Aug 3. – Green Island Spray, a Long Island
landscaping company, has agreed to pay a fine and immediately stop an
advertising campaign that claimed its spraying of homeowners’ shrubs and trees
would kill mosquitoes carrying the West Nile virus, Attorney General Eliot
Spitzer said.
SPITZER SAID WEDNESDAY that the action against Green Island
Spray of Huntington includes a fine of $35,000. The company – also known as
Green Tree and Lawn Care – also must pay restitution to customers who hired
the company based on its deceptive advertising, he said. Spitzer said half the fine would be suspended if Green
Island complies with the terms of the settlement.
In its ads, the company had offered to spray trees and shrubs with pesticide,
claiming its methods were “extremely effective” in killing mosquito eggs and
warning about the “very real threat of the encephalitic mosquito outbreak.”
In fact, mosquitoes lay their eggs in stagnant water. Green Island President Robert Ward denied the firm made false claims in its advertisements, saying mosquitoes often breed in the wet ground under trees and shrubs.
However, the company did not have the proper certification to eradicate mosquitoes and was using an insecticide not permitted for mosquito control, the attorney general’s office said.
A lawyer for Green Island said the company had been misled by the insecticide’s manufacturer.
© 2000 Associated Press. All rights
reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or
redistributed.
Well Mr. Helliker, I remember being at a pest control
operator's meeting where the President actually bragged:
"Everyone in this room is in violation (of the label)".
To which I replied: "Except me, or you would have hung me years
ago!" To violate the
"registered" label is a daily occurrence - if you ever bothered to
check, you would find out. But,
after making hundreds of thousands of POISON applications - no
"regulator" ever checked my work or that of any of my men.
The only time a "regulator" comes out is after a customer
complains - and that is normally weeks after the POISON application was made!
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