Prop 65 warnings have become a live issue for small free weights. FEX found four 60-day notices filed with the California Attorney General since July 2024 that allege vinyl-coated dumbbells or vinyl kettlebells exposed buyers to di(2-ethylhexyl)phthalate (DEHP) without the warning California requires. The most recent was filed on September 11, 2026. A notice is an allegation, not a finding, but each one starts a process that a distributor or dealer would rather stay out of.
The timing matters for a second reason. California rewrote the short-form warning used on small product labels, effective January 1, 2025, and the old wording is allowed only on products manufactured and labeled before January 1, 2028. A dealer that imports, private-labels or sells accessories online into California has a little more than 14 months to get labels, listings and supplier paperwork in order.
What the 60-day notices allege
Each notice below appears in the Attorney General’s public 60-day notice database. The listings give the product as the noticing party described it and the chemical alleged. They do not show how much DEHP, if any, a product contains.
| AG number | Date filed | Product as described | Chemical alleged |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2024-02880 | July 10, 2024 | Vinyl-coated 2 lb hexagon dumbbells | DEHP |
| 2025-01897 | June 13, 2025 | Vinyl-coated dumbbells | DEHP |
| 2026-01667 | April 13, 2026 | Vinyl kettlebells | DEHP |
| 2026-04357 | September 11, 2026 | Vinyl-coated dumbbells | DEHP |
The April 2026 kettlebell notice shows a withdrawal dated June 3, 2026, and the July 2024 dumbbell notice shows a settlement dated November 14, 2024, that calls for warnings or compliant products. Two of the four notices name an online marketplace as an alleged violator alongside the brand owner, a reminder that the selling channel, not only the label, is part of the question.
DEHP is on the Proposition 65 list as a carcinogen, listed January 1, 1988, and for developmental and male reproductive toxicity, listed October 24, 2003, according to OEHHA’s chemical listing page. Earlier, in April 2021, two 60-day notices targeted latex resistance bands over a different chemical, N-nitrosodiethylamine (NDEA), according to a summary published by the testing firm SGS.
The enforcement model in brief
Proposition 65 is enforced through civil lawsuits brought by the Attorney General, certain district attorneys and city attorneys, and private parties acting in the public interest, according to the Attorney General’s Proposition 65 FAQ. A private party may sue only after giving at least 60 days’ notice of the alleged violation to the business and to the public prosecutors, and only if none of them has taken action.
The same FAQ states that “Businesses with 9 or fewer employees are exempt from the requirements of Proposition 65,” and that a business in violation “is also subject to civil penalties of up to $2,500 per day for each violation.” A ten-person dealership is inside the law. Penalties are a ceiling set by statute; what a particular matter costs depends on its facts and how it is resolved.
Who owes Prop 65 warnings in a dealer channel
The warning regulations put primary responsibility upstream. Under Title 27, section 25600.2, a manufacturer, producer, packager, importer, supplier or distributor may comply either by putting a warning on the product label or labeling, or by sending a written notice to the authorized agent of the business it sells to or of a retail seller. That notice must identify the product, include the warning materials, including warning language for products sold on the internet, and be renewed annually while a retail seller sells the product in California.
A retail seller is responsible for the warning only in the circumstances listed in section 25600.2(e). Four of them are relevant to an equipment dealer:
- Own brand. The retailer sells the product “under a brand or trademark that is owned or licensed by the retail seller or an affiliated entity.”
- Warning materials received. The retailer received a notice and warning materials from its supplier and sold the product without conspicuously posting or displaying the warning.
- Label covered or altered. The retailer covered, obscured or altered a warning label the supplier had affixed.
- No one upstream to answer. The retailer has actual knowledge of the exposure, and no upstream business both falls within the law and has a California agent for service of process or a place of business in California.
The own-brand clause is the one a growing dealer can walk into without noticing. A house-brand set of coated dumbbells from an overseas factory generally puts the warning decision on the dealer, alongside the other duties covered in the four gates for launching a private-label equipment line. A dealer that imports directly is also the importer for this purpose, the same role that drives CPSC certificate eFiling for regulated imports.
Prop 65 warnings and the January 1, 2028 cutoff
OEHHA’s amendments took effect on January 1, 2025, according to the agency’s rulemaking page. The revised short-form warning in section 25603(b) must name at least one listed chemical, for example “Cancer risk from exposure to [name of chemical]. See www.P65Warnings.ca.gov.” It keeps the yellow triangle symbol and the bold “WARNING:” signal word.
Section 25602(a)(4) sets a size floor for short-form label warnings: “In no case shall the warning appear in a type size smaller than 6-point type.” On a small dumbbell carton or a hang tag, that floor and the longer text together decide how much label space the warning takes.
The old wording, such as “Cancer — www.P65Warnings.ca.gov,” survives under the transition rule in section 25603(c), which allows it on “a product manufactured and labeled prior to January 1, 2028,” regardless of when the product is sold to a consumer. Stock manufactured and labeled before that date can be sold through. Production labeled from that date needs the new content to use a short-form warning under the safe harbor.
Online listings follow the label. Under section 25602(b), an internet sale needs the warning on the product display page, a clearly marked hyperlink using the word “WARNING” on that page, or an otherwise prominently displayed warning before the purchase is completed. A warning the buyer has to search for in the general content of the site is not prominently displayed. For internet purchases made before January 1, 2028, a retailer has 60 calendar days after receiving an updated short-form warning from its supplier to post the new version online.
Catalogs have their own rule. Under section 25602(c), the warning must appear in the catalog in a manner that clearly associates it with the item being purchased, and, if the label carries a short-form warning, the catalog may use the same content.
Six checks for a dealer selling accessories into California
- List every SKU you sell into California that is vinyl-coated or has rubber or plastic components, and mark which are house brand, which you import and which you buy from a domestic distributor.
- For each house-brand or directly imported SKU, get the factory’s material declaration and, where your counsel advises it, test results for listed chemicals, then decide with counsel whether a warning is needed.
- For supplier-branded SKUs, ask each supplier in writing whether it provides a label warning or a section 25600.2 notice, and keep its answer with the item record.
- Check that warning materials you have received are posted on the shelf and on every product display page where the item is sold online, including marketplace listings you control.
- Put January 1, 2028 in the purchasing calendar, and require new short-form content on any production labeled from that date that uses a short-form warning.
- Send any 60-day notice to counsel and to the supplier on the day it arrives, and log the date received. Under section 25600.2(f)(2), a retail seller is not deemed to have actual knowledge of an exposure alleged in a notice until five business days after it receives the notice.
A worked example with stated assumptions
Assume a dealer with 14 employees runs one showroom outside California and ships to California customers from its website. It sells a house-brand vinyl dumbbell set imported from one factory, and a kettlebell line under a supplier’s brand. These facts are illustrative, not drawn from any notice.
With 14 employees, the dealer is above the exemption in the Attorney General’s FAQ. The house-brand dumbbells fall under the own-brand circumstance, so the warning decision generally sits with the dealer. For the kettlebells, the supplier is the first business the regulation looks to, and the dealer’s job is to post any warning materials the supplier sends.
Now assume the factory’s test report leads the dealer to add a warning to 600 cartons already in its warehouse. At an assumed $0.40 per printed label and 6 hours of warehouse labor at an assumed $28 an hour, the relabel costs $240 plus $168, or $408. The website update is a separate task, and the regulation requires it to appear on the product display page, behind a “WARNING” link there, or otherwise prominently before the purchase is completed.
| Situation | Who generally provides the warning | Record to keep |
|---|---|---|
| Product sold under the dealer’s own or licensed brand | The dealer, under section 25600.2(e)(1) | Material declaration, test reports, label proofs with production dates |
| Supplier puts the warning on the label | The supplier | Photo of the label for each lot received |
| Supplier sends a written notice with warning materials | The dealer must post or display what it received | The notice, confirmation of receipt and each annual renewal |
| Dealer repacks and covers the factory label | The dealer, under section 25600.2(e)(3) | Repack log showing the warning carried over |
| No upstream business has a California agent or place of business | The dealer, if it has actual knowledge, under section 25600.2(e)(5) | The supplier’s agent for service of process, checked at onboarding |
Records to review and warning signs
A quarterly review takes little time if the records exist. Pull the supplier notices and their annual renewals, label proofs with the production date of each lot, screenshots of each California-facing product page, and the 60-day notice log. Keep the employee count on file as well, since the exemption turns on it.
Common mistakes are easy to spot. Watch for a supplier that cannot say whether a product contains a listed chemical, a marketplace listing that lacks the warning printed on the carton, repackaging that covers a factory label, and a house-brand product launched without a material declaration. Each one leaves the dealer without the record it would need if a notice arrived.
Prop 65 warnings are a chemical-disclosure duty, separate from the safety labels on a machine, which follow the process in auditing and replacing equipment warning labels. The practical step this quarter is narrow: map each California SKU to the business responsible for its warning, and get that answer in writing. This article is general information, not legal advice; questions about a specific product belong with California counsel.
