Section 1A Eyeglasses or sunglasses; specifications; flammable frames; sales - Massachusetts Statutes

Section 1A. No person shall distribute, sell or deliver any eyeglasses or sunglasses unless said eyeglasses or sunglasses are fitted with plastic lenses, laminated lenses, heat-treated glass lenses or lenses made impact-resistant by other methods. The provisions of this paragraph shall not apply if a physician or optometrist, having found that such lenses will not fulfill the visual requirements of a particular patient, directs in writing the use of other lenses and gives written notification thereof to the patient. Before they are mounted in frames, all impact-resistant eyeglass and sunglass lenses shall be capable of withstanding an impact test of a steel ball five-eighths of an inch in diameter weighing approximately fifty-six hundredths of an ounce dropped from a height of fifty inches. Raised ledge multifocal lenses shall be capable of withstanding said impact test but need not be tested beyond initial design testing. All prescription glass lenses shall withstand said impact test. To demonstrate that all nonprescription glass lenses, plastic lenses and laminated lenses are capable of withstanding said impact test, the manufacturer of such lenses shall subject to said impact test a statistically significant sampling of lenses from each production batch, and the lenses so tested shall be representative of the finished forms as worn by the wearer. Plastic prescription and plastic nonprescription lenses, tested on the basis of statistical significance, may be tested in uncut finished or semifinished form at the point of original manufacture.

No person shall distribute, sell, exchange or deliver or have in his possession with intent to distribute, sell, exchange or deliver any eyeglass or sunglass frame containing any form of cellulose nitrate or other highly flammable material.

Whoever violates any provision of this section shall be punished by a fine of not more than five hundred dollars for each violation.