Chiquita Peoples knows this firsthand. Her 8-year-old son, Savion, who takes after his 6-foot-7 dad, is already 5-foot-4 and wears a men's size 9 1/2 shoe. If Chiquita had to pay full price for new duds each time Savion's wrists grew past his shirt cuffs, she'd be broke. So she has been a longtime shopper at the Goodwill store at Front and Oregon, where she has been able to outfit Savion for a fraction of what she'd pay retail.

"Times are hard," said Peoples, as she flipped through the racks at Goodwill yesterday. "But children keep growing. You've got to keep them clothed."

Parents like Peoples will have a harder time dressing their children if the Consumer Product Safety Commission holds Goodwill, and other re-sellers of kids' items, to the standards of a new law aimed at keeping kids safe.

Signed last August, the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act (CPSIA) requires purveyors of children's items - clothes, toys, furniture, books, you name it - to ensure that their products are lead-free, starting Feb. 10.

For manufacturers, that means that the lead levels in materials sold from that day forward can be no higher than 600 parts per million (that level ratchets down to 100 by 2011).

Punishment for violating the act? Up to $100,000 in fines, and/or five years' imprisonment.

The law, though, appears to also hold re-sellers accountable, as of Feb. 10, for those same lower levels.

"That's our entire inventory of children's items," says Adele Meyer, executive director of the Michigan-based National Association of Resale and Thrift Shops (NARTS). "This thing has the power to wipe out the children's re-sale market."

Unless re-sellers undergo third-party testing of their items, which, Meyer told me, would cost more than an item would earn at the register.

"So we either toss the products in a landfill" - or shut down completely, if the re-seller deals only in children's items, says Meyer. "This thing has the power to wipe out the children's re-sale market."

Isn't that fabulous? In a lousy economy, we've actually found a way to kill one of the only healthy industries we have left.

At least the new law is well-intentioned, a response to the recalled-toys crisis of 2007, when all those imported lead-laced toys were making kids sick.

But the act requires re-sellers to test things that everyone knows contain no lead - like cotton shirts and leather shoes.

No kidding.

"This is a very big concern," says Juli Lundberg, PR manager for Goodwill Industries of Southern N.J. and Philadelphia, which operates 16 shops in the region. "Our stores are a strong revenue stream for us" - $13 million was generated last year alone, though it's unclear what percentage of that figure represents children's items. "A loss would impact the services we're able to provide the community."

Not only Goodwill would be affected. The Salvation Army runs a large resale operation, as does the American Cancer Society and countless hospitals, churches and other small organizations that use volunteer-run thrift sales to raise funds.

Then there are individual boutiques whose entire inventory is kid-based. Like Worn Yesterday, a high-end consignment shop in Manayunk, where business has been strong for 23 years.

"This is a very reliable market, especially for a destination store like mine," says Davida Levin. "If parents can't buy at re-sale shops, how can they afford to dress their kids? They grow so quickly, you can't keep buying new."

Yesterday, the Consumer Product Safety Commission issued a statement that re-sellers are not required to test kids' products for compliance with the lead limit before they're sold.

"However," it continued, "resellers cannot sell children's products that exceed the lead limit and therefore should avoid products that are likely to have lead content, unless they have testing or other information to indicate the products being sold have less than the new limit."

Huh?

"Their attempt to 'clarify' the law has only worsened the confusion," says the NARTS' Meyer. "Our members could still face civil or criminal penalties."

Wanna offer your own two cents? Go to www.narts.org, and click on "Save Children's Resale" to lobby for a better interpretation of a well-intended law that could have the unintended consequence of shutting down an entire industry.

Please do it soon. Or at least before Chiquita Peoples' son outgrows another pair of pants. *

E-mail polaner@phillynews.com or call 215-854-2217. For recent columns:

http://go.philly.com/polaneczky. Read Ronnie's blog at http://go.philly. com/ronnieblog.