Proposal to donate toiletries hits snag; Legal concerns stall airport seizures idea.

A plan calling on airport security officials to donate surrendered toiletries to Fresno homeless shelters has stalled amid legal concerns.

"We never got one item," said Larry Arce, executive director of the Fresno Rescue Mission. "It fizzled immediately."

Officials praised the program when it was announced in June at the Fresno Yosemite International Airport. But, soon after, lawyers for the federal Transportation Security Administration expressed concerns about possible liability issues.

"They didn't really indicate to us [the] details," Robert Benson, a Fresno-based regional security director for the TSA, said of the agency's lawyers. "The last I had heard, it is still being looked at."

In general, shampoo, deodorant, shaving cream and other items brought on an airplane must be in containers three ounces or smaller, according to the latest guidelines posted on TSA's Web site. Items deemed too big are tossed into bins and eventually end up in landfills -- at the rate of up to 300 pounds a week in Fresno, officials say.

The plan was to donate the surrendered products to the Fresno Rescue Mission, which would have shared the items with other social service agencies.

Benson declined to speculate on the possible liability concerns.

In a letter to the editor published in the Bee shortly after the program was announced, one reader had this concern:

"What's going to happen when some poor unsuspecting person in the mission opens one of these toiletry containers and it explodes in his face?" wrote Irv Brown of Fresno. "Where is our sense of value toward those whose flight in life appears to be of less importance?"

State Sen. Dean Florez, the Shafter Democrat who came up with the idea, called TSA's concerns "a lot of bureaucratic nonsense."

"These are not items that we find out in the road. These are items that people had in their bags," he said. "Why would I carry a bottle of after shave that would be hurtful to me?"

A similar program at Bakersfield's Meadow Field was up and running for a few months before it was shut down, Florez said.

The state Senate recently passed a Florez-authored resolution urging all of the state's airports to partake in the program. The resolution -- which carries no legal weight -- suggests that only unused and unopened items be donated. It also points out that charities "are willing to accept all liability for donated items."

Fresno Rescue Mission carries liability insurance that "covers just about everything," Arce said.

The reporter can be reached at [email protected] or (916) 326-5541.