Who does this?
One of those famously (and, yes apocryphally) illegal-to-remove mattress tags lies on the plaza outside the Count Basie Center for the Arts – directly across from the Red Bank Police Department headquarters.
What kind of brazen, criminal-minded monster would do this right in front of the police station?
We jest, of course. But the sight immediately reminded us of how comedians from Woody Allen to Jay Leno have long made jokes about the potential legal ramifications of removing the tags which often contain a warning about how illegal to remove them.
Those laws only apply to manufacturers and retailers, of course.
But while the wording of current tags (like this one) makes that pretty clear, decades ago the wording was often far less so, and did make it seem like you could be hauled off to the greybar hotel if you took a pair of scissors to your Stearns & Foster.
What’s the deal with these tags anyway?
The web site Mental Floss tells us they were put in place as a protection for consumers at a time when “mattresses were often constructed with some unsavory stuffing — horse hair, corn husks, food waste, old rags, newspaper, and whatever else a manufacturer could come by were regularly shoved inside.
The post continues: “The purpose of the tag is to assure consumers that they’re buying a new, never-been-used product and to let them know exactly what’s inside it. The need for this protective label arose in the early 20th century, amid a boom in consumer protection regulations.”
Partyline photos and text by Brian Donohue.
