and click on "Recall Information" for more information. Report an Incident Involving this Product WASHINGTON, D.C. - The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) and Ace Bayou Corp., of New Orleans, La., are reannouncing the voluntary recall of about 2.2 million bean bag chairs sold from 1995 to 2013. Only 790 consumers, who purchased the bean bag chairs, have responded to the recall. CPSC and Ace Bayou are urging consumers to install the free repair kit to permanently disable the bean bag chairs' zippers so that they cannot be opened. CPSC is extremely concerned that these recalled bean bag chairs are continuing to be used by children. The foam beads inside the chairs are serious suffocation and choking hazards for children. Two children died after suffocating on the chair's foam beads. An additional incident has been reported to CPSC involving a 6 year old boy who opened bean bag and reportedly swallowed some foam beads and had others in his nose and mouth.
The recalled bean bag chairs have two zippers, including an outer zipper that does not have a pull tab and another zipper directly underneath that zipper. Although the outer zipper on the bean bag chair does not have a pull tab, children can open it. Once they have opened the outer zipper, they can open the inner zipper which contains the foam beads and crawl inside. Children can suffocate or choke on these foam beads. The voluntary standard requires non-refillable bean bag chairs to have closed and permanently disabled zippers. Ace met the voluntary standard's requirement for a warning label. The two deaths involved a 13-year old boy from McKinney, Texas died and a 3-year-old girl from Lexington, Ky. who suffocated from lack of air and inhaling the chair's foam beads. Both children were found inside the chairs. The recalled chairs with zippers that can be opened were sold in a variety of sizes, shapes, colors and fabrics. They include round or L-shaped, vinyl or fabric, and are filled with polystyrene foam beads.
They were sold in a variety of colors, including purple, violet, blue, red, pink, yellow, Kelly green, black, port, navy, lime, royal blue, turquoise, tangerine and multi-color. The round bean bag chairs were sold in three sizes, 30, 32 and 40 inches in diameter. The L-shaped bean bag chair measures 18 inches wide by 30 inches deep by 30 inches high. "ACE BAYOU CORP" is printed on a tag sewn into the bean bag chair's cover seam. They were made in China. , , and other websites from 1995 to 2013 for between $30 and $100. To prevent another death, consumers should check the outside zipper on their bean bag chair to ensure that it has a metal staple to disable the outer zipper. If it does not have a metal staple, take the recalled bean bag chair away from children immediately and contact Ace Bayou for the free repair kit to permanently disable the zipper. Ace Bayou bean bag chair b-roll available at: The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission is charged with protecting the public from unreasonable risks of injury or death associated with the use of
thousands of types of consumer products under the agency’s jurisdiction. Deaths, injuries, and property damage from consumer product incidents cost the nation more than $1 trillion annually. CPSC is committed to protecting consumers and families from products that pose a fire, electrical, chemical orCPSC's work to help ensure the safety of consumer products - such as toys, cribs, power tools, cigarette lighters and household chemicals -– contributed to a decline in the rate of deaths and injuries associated with consumer products over the past 40 years. Federal law bars any person from selling products subject to a publicly-announced voluntary recall by a manufacturer or a mandatory recall ordered by the To report a dangerous product or a product-related injury go online to www.SaferProducts.gov or call CPSC's Hotline at 800-638-2772 or teletypewriter at 301-595-7054 for the hearing impaired. Consumers can obtain news release and recall information at www.cpsc.gov, on Twitter @USCPSC or by subscribing
to CPSC's free e-mail newsletters.Bean bag chairs are a popular type of chair manufactured from vinyl or leather material. They contain small pieces of Styrofoam or PVC pellets inside the bag. When a person sits in the chair, the outer material shapes around the body. Bean bag chairs were particularly popular during the 1960s and 1970s, but slowly began to fade out during the next decade. Their attractiveness resumed in the mid 1990s as newer, more comfortable versions of the popular chair emerged onto the market. Bean bag chairs are commonly used as a comfortable and fun means of lounging or relaxing. The filling used in bean bag chairs varies from small pellets to shredded bits of polyurethane foam. Generally, the beads used to fill a bean bag chair are approximately 3-9 mm in diameter. However, micro-beads have now been introduced onto the market. These tiny bean bag chair beans can be as small as 1 mm in diameter. A suffocation and choking hazard exists as a result of children unzipping the bean bag chairs and playing with the filling fibers, or crawling inside of the bag.
In addition, inappropriately zippered bean bag chairs may release fibrous filling which can present a choking or asphyxiation danger. Bean bag chairs not meeting Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) standard regulations are subject to recall. CPSC standard regulations for bean bag chairs were put into effect in November 1996. The CPSC requires that all bean bag chairs available on the market be modified in an effort to prevent young children from opening the zipper and gaining access to the fibrous materials inside. Any bean bag chair that is capable of being refilled must possess a zipper with a lock that can only be opened with a special tool. All other chairs must either have a disabled zipper or no zipper at all. Permanent warning labels must also be present on bean bag chairs. In an effort to ensure that proper, sturdy fabrics that will not easily rip or tear are used in the creation of the bag, further CPSC standards require durability tests on the materials used in the manufacturing of bean bag chairs.
At least five deaths related to bean bag chairs were reported to the CPSC by 1995, prior to the government regulations set forth in 1996. The deaths occurred when children unzipped the chairs and crawled inside. The small, fibrous pellets were inhaled, causing asphyxiation resulting in death. At least 27 other incidences where children have choked on the pellets were also reported prior to CPSC standards. In July 1995, as part of an ongoing investigation concerning bean bag chairs, five manufacturers of the chairs announced a voluntary recall of more than 140,000 bean bag chairs. Prior to this, more than 12 million bean bag chairs were included by 10 other manufacturers. The five companies included in the voluntary recall in July 1995 include: B.A.T, Golden Needle co., Holbrook-Patterson, Inc., Lazy Bean, and Lewco Corp. The bean bag chairs involved in the recall were sold at specialty stores, educational supply companies, and through catalogs between 1989 and 1995. Thirty thousand bean bag chairs manufactured by Baseline Design of Linwood, Pennsylvania, were recalled as a result of suffocation and strangulation hazards.