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- Feb 7, 2000
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Just found this heartening story in the The Blog of Legal Times:
"Multipurpose Pocket Tools" Find a Downtown Advocate
Anyone who travels regularly knows the feeling of loss that sometimes accompanies a stop at an airport screening gate. For the last six years, innocent bottles of shampoo, nail files, disposable lighters, and other verboten objects have been confiscated as a condition of passage.
Now the pocketknife industry is looking for some Washington help. Within the last two weeks, Leatherman Tool Group and Victorinox Swiss Army have retained Williams & Jensen to lobby for changes in TSA regulations that ban pocket tools from airports and commercial flights. Handling the matter for Williams & Jensen is Tracy Lord, who appears to be the lobbyist of choice for clients trying to get their products airborne she earned $40,000 in the first half of the year representing Zippo Corporation on TSA lighter policies.
Rick Taggart, President of Victorinox, says the two firms had long considered restrictions on their multi-purpose pocket tools to be burdensome.
Weve made multifunction pocket tools for generations now, Taggart says. Wed be kidding ourselves if we said it didnt have an impact on our business.
Until recently the industry suffered in silence, he says. Then a Transportation Security Agency rule gave a green light to passengers packing knitting needles and scissors with four inch blades. Since Victorinoxs products all have shorter blades, Taggart says, we couldnt help but say, look, weve got to explore this.
The lobbying effort is only in the exploratory stage, and cost the two companies a relatively minor amount of money, he says. Other industry players are aware of the two companies interest and might join, though Taggart notes that theres only a limited number of companies heavily invested in the multipurpose pocket tool market.
Key to any effort is the distinction between Victorinox and Leatherman products and knives. Those, Taggart says, are still just not appropriate to have on planes.
Posted by Jeff Horwitz on December 13, 20
"Multipurpose Pocket Tools" Find a Downtown Advocate
Anyone who travels regularly knows the feeling of loss that sometimes accompanies a stop at an airport screening gate. For the last six years, innocent bottles of shampoo, nail files, disposable lighters, and other verboten objects have been confiscated as a condition of passage.
Now the pocketknife industry is looking for some Washington help. Within the last two weeks, Leatherman Tool Group and Victorinox Swiss Army have retained Williams & Jensen to lobby for changes in TSA regulations that ban pocket tools from airports and commercial flights. Handling the matter for Williams & Jensen is Tracy Lord, who appears to be the lobbyist of choice for clients trying to get their products airborne she earned $40,000 in the first half of the year representing Zippo Corporation on TSA lighter policies.
Rick Taggart, President of Victorinox, says the two firms had long considered restrictions on their multi-purpose pocket tools to be burdensome.
Weve made multifunction pocket tools for generations now, Taggart says. Wed be kidding ourselves if we said it didnt have an impact on our business.
Until recently the industry suffered in silence, he says. Then a Transportation Security Agency rule gave a green light to passengers packing knitting needles and scissors with four inch blades. Since Victorinoxs products all have shorter blades, Taggart says, we couldnt help but say, look, weve got to explore this.
The lobbying effort is only in the exploratory stage, and cost the two companies a relatively minor amount of money, he says. Other industry players are aware of the two companies interest and might join, though Taggart notes that theres only a limited number of companies heavily invested in the multipurpose pocket tool market.
Key to any effort is the distinction between Victorinox and Leatherman products and knives. Those, Taggart says, are still just not appropriate to have on planes.
Posted by Jeff Horwitz on December 13, 20
he he he he he