Paint

Raymond Pittman stood on his porch this week and expressed his delight that his 76-year-old blue-gray Spanish-Colonial-style home on West Broadway is among those that volunteers will be painting this weekend. "It's going to be gorgeous," said Pittman, 65, who has owned the home for 20 years. Pittman's home is one of 44 being refurbished today during Paint Your Heart Out Anaheim, a program that upgrades homes for low-income elderly and disabled owners.

The City Council voted Wednesday to join Santa Clara County and other cities in a lawsuit that alleges paint manufacturers, including Sherwin-Williams, sold lead paint to customers -- before its sale became illegal -- despite knowing that the paint could affect people's health. The companies have argued in other suits that potential harm from lead paints is the result of improper maintenance of paint in building interiors.

Walls painted with latex paint that was manufactured before August can give off enough mercury to be potentially harmful, especially to children, a federal report warned last week in the New England Journal of Medicine. A study found four times the normal level of mercury in the bodies of people whose homes were painted inside with latex paint that contained mercury as a preservative. Because of the problem, the Environmental Protection Agency prohibited adding mercury to paint after Aug. 20.

Most varieties of oil-based house paint will be phased out in the Los Angeles region under an environmental mandate adopted Friday by the South Coast Air Quality Management District board. The new regulation--which applies to Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside and San Bernardino counties--means that the flat-finish paints used on most homes and businesses must, beginning in 2001, be 60% lower in solvents than is allowable today.

A judge ruled that Rhode Island cannot seek punitive damages against three lead paint makers found liable for creating a public nuisance in the state. The companies -- Sherwin-Williams Co., NL Industries Inc. and Millennium Holdings -- still must pay to remove the danger of peeling lead paint in homes, which could cost billions of dollars.

Small family businesses tend to get a lot of lip-service reverence from politicians, urban officials and the like. But away from the rhetoric, life has become increasingly difficult for the little guy in the super-competitive global economy. And yet size is not the whole story, either. Sometimes, the small and brave can seize the day. Take Smiland Paint Co., a family-owned enterprise based in Alhambra that registers about $40 million in annual sales.

Lawsuits pending in New York and Massachusetts charge that makers of lead paint have known of its danger to children since at least the 1930s, but failed to use safe substitutes or post warnings. The suits may pave the way for a new wave of product liability claims similar to those brought by asbestos victims.

Paint companies scrambled to alleviate consumer fears Friday over reports that mercury in interior latex paint can be harmful. Several of the companies said they have not used mercury for years. The Environmental Protection Agency barred manufacturers from adding mercury to paint after Aug. 20. Paint made before then may still be sold, however.

Come Play Products Co. of Worcester, Mass., is recalling about 100,000 toy brooms because of lead paint on the broom handles, the Consumer Product Safety Commission announced Friday. Lead can be poisonous, officials said. The wooden-handled brooms have been sold nationwide since 1960 at about $2.50 each.

Six teen-agers were found dead Friday in a car on an isolated farm road near Tokyo after apparently sniffing paint thinner out of plastic bags, police said. The dead--four boys and two girls--were aged 18 or 19.