Ban on Lacquer Floor Sealer Starts Today

Breakstone, White & Gluck congratulates MassCOSH for its tireless advocacy of a new law which bans flammable floor finishing product in Massachusetts. The law takes effect today.

The law bans the commercial use and sale of lacquer sealer, which can easily ignite and is linked to three deaths of floor finishers in house fires.

“This groundbreaking law will save lives and end floor finishing fires that have caused so much pain and destruction,” said Marcy Goldstein-Gelb, executive director of MassCOSH (the Massachusetts Coalition for Occupational Safety and Health).

The law was filed at the urging of the industry-labor-community Floor Finishing Safety Task Force. The task force investigated two home fires in Somerville and Hull that killed three floor sanders and burned several others.

The task force was led by MassCOSH and Viet Aid. The floor refinishing industry in Massachusetts is largely concentrated in the Vietnamese community.

The Massachusetts Department of Public Health is disseminating new posters alerting floor finishing contractors across the state about the ban.

Breakstone, White & Gluck is a construction accident law firm, and is a proud sponsor of MassCOSH. Click here to learn more about MassCOSH.