Geoffrey Mohan,Los Angeles Times
LOS ANGELES _ Veteran guitar repairman Bob Wirtz faced a wall of pricey custom-built electric guitars, and he had the ear of Gibson Guitar Corp.’s resident expert on the instruments. But what Wirtz wanted to talk about was international law.
Like many who attended the National Association of Music Merchants convention in Anaheim, Calif., last weekend, Wirtz was tapping into a discordant tone among the makers, purveyors and purchasers of guitars that often are made from exotic woods protected by the federal Lacey Act.
A raid on Gibson’s Nashville, Tenn., factory last summer, the second at company workshops in as many years, vaulted the once-obscure law into the national spotlight when Chief Executive Henry E. Juszkiewicz accused the federal government of “bullying” and “persecution.” His high-profile campaign against the raids has made him the darling of the GOP and the tea party movement and their agenda of regulatory reform.
At a hearing convened by U.S. Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., shortly after the August raid, Juszkiewicz said the seizures, delays in bringing charges and wrangling over a Gibson countersuit were events he “just really would never have believed … would take place in this country.”
Wirtz was sympathetic.
“For the Department of Justice or any entity of government to spend those kinds of resources on something that isn’t well defined … it really seems to smell like politics as opposed to ecological concern,” he said.
The law, first passed in 1900 to curtail trade in contraband wildlife, was amended in 2008 to address illegally harvested wood.
At the time, the amendments enjoyed bipartisan support, particularly among lawmakers from states with large forestry interests. They touted the measure as a way to protect American wood products from cheaper, illegally harvested wood from foreign sources. Such support is crumbling amid a presidential election campaign.
The National Association of Music Merchants backs Gibson’s gripe and a congressional bill to revise Lacey. But the attitude of its members at the convention, which attracted more than 95,000 registrants, was more nuanced.
Wirtz, who has worked with guitars for half a century, runs the stringed instrument repair shop at a Sam Ash music store in the City of Industry, Calif. He was familiar with the dispute over whether Indian rosewood was lumber — illegal to export under Indian law — or finished fret board, which is exportable.
“The amount of Indian rosewood going into making a guitar is a tiny drop in the bucket,” Wirtz said. “It’s kind of a strange area of the economy to go after when there’s so many other areas to go after.”
Cliff Chulos, president of North American Wood Products, had a large display of sawed wood certified by the Forest Stewardship Council, or FSC.
He said he has benefited from the Gibson raid: His Portland, Ore., company now supplies fingerboard wood to the company.
Chulos remains a strong supporter of the 2008 Lacey amendments introduced by Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore. “Not only is it beneficial for the environment, but it benefits America,” he said.
Nonetheless, Chulos added, “Can’t we revise the act to make it simpler for the buyers?”
Fingerboard blanks, he said, are too small to have any other use and shouldn’t have to be classified as lumber. “It doesn’t have any other use. It’s not lumber.”
Scott Paul, director of Greenpeace’s forest campaign, said he fears the current GOP-dominated House may open the law to amendments pushed by lobbyists from less reputable foresters, particularly in Indonesia.
“The prospect of bringing this act back to Capitol Hill and opening it up is daunting,” said Paul, who is not related to the Kentucky senator. “Greenpeace feels a lot of the issues that are being raised can be addressed at the agency level.”
C.F. Martin & Co. markets a line of guitars built entirely with FSC-certified wood, and others that include certified woods.
“We absolutely support the Lacey Act,” said Gregory Paul, vice president of corporate operations for the Nazareth, Pa., company. He also is not related to the senator. “We understand the Lacey Act does create some difficult circumstances.”
Holding a guitar made of FSC-certified woods, Gregory Paul said: “There are species available. You just have to be diligent about who you obtain it from.”
So according to Gibson exec Juszkiewicz it is OK to use small amounts of forbidden materials in your products. Does it follow that small amounts of ivory are OK to use? How about small amounts of Bald Eagle feathers, or cheetah feet, or whatever? I’ve played guitar for almost 50 years now. Yes, when Brazilian rosewood was taken off the market it created a hardship for some however the loss of this wood is not the end of high quality guitar building in America or anywhere else. Gibson is out of line here and needs to have their tail kicked. First for ignoring the law and second for trying to justify their illegal behavior by saying they only use a little bit of prohibited material.
Exactly where in this article can you point to Gibson’s CEO making any kind of a statement that it is OK to use small amounts of forbidden materials in their products?? You’re putting words in his mouth to make your case.
Gibson is not accused of importing banned wood; the Federal Government’s case turns on their interpretation of an Indian law governing the export of finished wood products. The U.S. interpration of the law is that Gibson imported Indian wood that wasn’t finished enough.
This is a case of the U.S. Government trying to score political points and Gibson is a big fat target for that purpose.
You are right, the quote comes from Wurtz, a Juszkiewicz authorized Gibson repair luthier. Here is the quote from Juszkiewicz,
Chief Executive Henry E. Juszkiewicz accused the federal government of “bullying” and “persecution.” The author goes on to say that; His high-profile campaign against the raids has made him the darling of the GOP and the tea party movement and their agenda of regulatory reform.
Since I am a musician who has used their products, as well as other luthiers guitars, for almost half a century I tend to follow these stories. First, Gibson was raided numerous times and up until the last raid they kept promising that they would comply with the law. They never did! Since then Juszkiewicz has made it clear many times that he does not feel these laws apply to Gibson. He, Juszkiewicz, has said numerous times, pretty much word for word, what his representative Wurtz said when interviewed. He feels the law is stupid, that Gibson and the guitar industry in general do not use much anyway, and therefore they shouldn’t be subject to the regulations. He has also used the excuse the “hey, the wood has already been cut and we don’t want to waste it.” What you apparently do not know, and Juszkiewicz doesn’t want to acknowledge, is that there is an element of legal reciprocity here. In the case of wood species this goes back to a treaty signed by the US in 1973 called CITES. The article is correct in saying these laws were long ignored however…. that does not change anything here.
My earlier comment has no political impetus at all and I resent that remark sir.
As far as Gibson products go, Juszkiewicz needs to have his tail kicked for more than this legal dilemma that he faces. He should have it kicked for charging the price he does for mediocre instruments. Gibson has been living off it’s reputation since before they left Kalamazoo, MI. The vast bulk of their sales are to ignorant young musicians who still hear the fables about Gibson and it’s history. Truth is, Gibson instruments, like Fender, earned their reputation through the skill of the people who played them not because of the quality of their guitars. It is well known by those of us with a few years under our belt that you had to literally hand pick your Gibson (or Fender, or Gretsch etc) guitar out of the bunch because the fret regulation was sooooo bad that most of them wouldn’t be in tune from one fret to the next. Any time you used a tremolo bar you stood a 80% chance of putting the instrument out of tune. Strings broke because the bridge was so shoddy that jagged metal edges would literally cut the string while you played. Screws fell out, the finish cracked, blah blah blah. You get the idea. Or if you don’t you’ll just accuse me of bad mouthing an American product. It is interesting to note that Martin, who actually does manufacture fairly good instruments, complies with the law completely.
Thanks for your input. I always wanted a Les Paul until I actually owned one.
I never saw that quote either. This is exactly the kind of thing that drives manufacturing overseas. The funny part is there are people out there, such as watchdogME, that cheer it on. It’s also pretty humorous that this is even an issue since the product you are all fighting about literally DOES “grow on trees”. It does make me feel secure knowing there are people like watchdogME that are out there to shove their Gov’t programmed rhetoric down our throats, just in case we start thinking for ourselves……
What a jerk! A more ignorant, out of line, outright stupid, statement would be hard to find in the comment section. Oh, unless you include those from the lying right wing republican idiots who live by Limbaughs’ word. You honestly do not know a thing about wood, where it comes from, or anything to do with the endangered species list to you? For the record, ALL 37 OF MY GUITARS ARE AMERICAN MADE!
By the way Dude, most of my recording studio is not made in America. Domestic production of consumer electronics went oversea’s with the GOP push for higher, tax free income via their version of a worldwide free market. That my friend is one reason jobs left America. Another reason, also profit driven, was corporate raiding such as your man Romney made his living at. They buy companies, downgrade the quality of the product (living on the reputation of former high quality American made products) and outsource many of the components to companies overseas. Then they lay everyone off, all in the name of increased profit. Finally, you probably do not know this Dude but Gibson and Fender both have a large portion of their products made outside of the US. Mexico mostly with other factories in the far east.
American jobs went overseas because of GOP unregulated free market policies! Even the American wood products companies, the guys who harvest domestic wood, support the Lacey Act because they say it keep jobs in America.
Yet another law driving business out of our country. All the while doing no real good at all except to make the person who wrote have a feel good moment.
Good grief! Either you cannot read or your brain refuses to acknowledge what it has seen. How sad.