The Bounty Hunters Came for My Turkish Chocolate

By a Blogger Who Just Called, Actually

I have a problem. It’s not drugs. It’s not gambling. It’s Little Temptations Freeze-Dried Strawberries in Dark Chocolate.

They’re made by JNC International Inc., doing business as Crystal Temptations, based in New Jersey. But the actual chocolate comes from Turkey—imported from a company called Dora Group Food Industry. That matters, because real Turkish chocolate is incredible. And real chocolate in the United States is apparently harder to find than a parking spot at Trader Joe’s after 5 p.m., thanks to tariffs and whatever else is happening at the ports.

I found these bags of joy at T.J. Maxx. They were sitting between a candle that smelled like a rich person’s laundry room and a ceramic hedgehog. I bought one bag. Then I did something radical: I called the number on the package. I did not drive to every store in the tri-state area. I am not a maniac. A nice woman—let’s call her Susan—told me they were sold at T.J. Maxx, Marshalls, HomeGoods, and Burlington. I thanked her. I may have told her I loved her. She did not say it back. It’s fine. I’m fine.

Then I made the mistake of asking the internet where to buy more. And the internet said: Clean Product Advocates, LLC filed a Proposition 65 notice claiming lead in your strawberries.

Lead. In my Turkish chocolate.

Here’s the thing: Clean Product Advocates, LLC is not a nonprofit. It’s not a charity. It’s not a consumer advocacy group. It’s a law firm. And under California’s Proposition 65—not “Proposition 9 or whatever”—this law firm gets to act as a “private attorney general.” It files a 60-day notice claiming a product contains a chemical on the state’s list. The company then has to prove the product is safe, which costs a fortune and takes years. So they settle. The law firm gets 25% of the civil penalty. The rest goes to California. Attorney’s fees are extra. This is not public health advocacy. This is a frivolous, profit-motivated lawsuit designed to extract money from companies that would rather settle than fight.

This isn’t my imagination. The California Attorney General has formally stated that the financial incentives in Proposition 65 have resulted in “many abuses by predatory lawyers and ‘bounty hunters,’” and that these “frivolous lawsuits do little to improve the public health in California”. Then-Governor Jerry Brown said the law has been abused by “unscrupulous lawyers driven by profit rather than public health”. Legal experts call it a “cottage industry” of bounty hunter law firms. One court described the settlements as a “shakedown process in which attorney fees are obtained by bargaining away the public’s interest”. The California Chamber of Commerce calls them “rampant ‘shakedown’ lawsuits” that “harm California consumers”.

So here’s my proposal to the universe: Next time, actually test the chocolate. Publish the results. Give the company a chance to fix it. And leave my imported, tariff-battered, delicious Turkish strawberries alone.

Because I have tried many chocolates. Most of them made me sick. It is very rare to find one with real cocoa and real sugar—not corn syrup—that doesn’t upset your stomach and actually makes you feel good. This chocolate is one of the few. It’s from Turkey. It’s real. And I’m not giving it up because some law firm wants a quick payout.

California is tired of it. The rest of the country is tired of it. We’re all tired of these frivolous, profit-motivated lawsuits ruining our simple pleasures. It’s time for this racket to end.

The author is a blogger, a chocolate enthusiast, and a man who has never filed a Proposition 65 notice but now understands why everyone in California—and the rest of the country—is tired of it.