What is Proposition 65?

Product safety is important at Mystery Tackle Box and Karl's Bait & Tackle, and we want to ensure that all products sold by us comply with all applicable health and safety requirements.

One of those safety requirements affecting California residents is known as California Proposition 65 ("Prop 65"). In its simplest form, Prop 65 prohibits businesses from exposing California residents to chemicals known to the State of California to cause cancer or reproductive toxicity without first either showing that the level of exposure of such chemicals is not significant or giving California residents a warning about the chemicals in the products. The State of California has developed a list of over 850 chemicals known to cause cancer or reproductive toxicity, and because this list is so extensive and contains many common chemicals, proving insignificant levels of all listed chemicals is difficult. As a result, most of our vendors comply with Prop 65 by providing California residents with a warning, which generally reads:

"WARNING: This product contains one or more chemicals known to the State of California to cause cancer and birth defects or other reproductive harm."

Since every retailer selling in the State of California needs to comply with Prop 65, most of our vendors put a Prop 65 label on all of their products that might contain one or more of the chemicals listed by the State of California, even if those products end up being sold in other states. Prop 65 is unique to California, and no other state currently requires the same or similar warnings as those mandated by Prop 65.

It is worth noting that most of the chemicals California deems to be hazardous (lead, plastisol used in soft plastics, some parts, etc.) are in nearly every type of artificial lure and that there is no scientific research done by any other states or groups that we are aware of that have issued similar types of warnings to customers. The fact that some of the items in the box have the prop 65 label on there has nothing to do with our great affordable pricing and the items in the box!