Ball Pits

The purpose of my petition is to make it mandatory to have ball pits cleaned out at least once a week. Any establishment that has a ball pit. Including fast food places such as McDonald's, Burger King, Time zone etc, and also play Zones like Tons of fun, Chucky Cheese etc.

I have three incidents in which I would like to share with you. Some of you might not be parents, but you may have nieces, nephews, grandchildren, or friends with children. This will pertain to you too.

The first of which, a simple incident A boy was playing in the ball pit in a play area once and he lost his watch, he soon became very upset and his mother and himself dug through the balls trying to find his watch. Instead of finding the watch they found vomit, feces, and other stuff and objects in which they did not want to discuss. The mother went to the manager to complain and it turns out that the ball pit only got cleaned once a month! She had doubts that it was even done that much.

The second incident involves a mother, whose name is Lauren Archer, Lauren lived with her only son Kevin in Melbourne,Australia. On October 2nd, 1999 Lauren took Kevin to McDonald's for his 3rd birthday. After he finished lunch, she allowed him to play in the ball pit. He started whining later on, Lauren asked him what was wrong, he pointed to the back of his pull-up and simply said 'Mommy, it hurts.'. She couldn't find anything wrong with him at that time. She bathed him when we got home, and it was at that point when she found a welt on his left buttock. Upon investigating, it seemed as if there was something like a splinter under the welt she made an appointment to see the doctor the next day, but soon he started vomiting and shaking, then his eyes rolled back into his head. From there, we went to the emergency room. He died later that night. It turned out that the welt on his buttock was the tip of a hypodermic needle that had broken off inside. The autopsy revealed that Kevin had died from a heroine overdose. The next week, the police removed the balls from the ball pit. There was rotten food, several hypodermic needles: some full, some used; knives, half-eaten candy, diapers, feces, and the stench of urine.

My Final Incident was at Burger King where a small boy had been playing in the ball pit and started complaining of his legs hurting. He later died too. He was found to have snake bites all over his legs buttocks. When they cleaned the ball pit they found that there was a snake's nest in the ball pit. He had suffered numerous bites from a very poisonous snake.

What has this world come to? If a child is not safe in a child's play area then where are they safe?

Please those who care about children, or the fairness of life please sign...



I cannot stress how important this is!