Following the passage of Washington State House Bill 1009 earlier this week, employees of businesses who knowingly sell or rent violent video games to minors could soon be fined up to $500 by police officers. The legislation was introduced by Mary Lou Dickerson, chairwoman of the House Juvenile Justice and Family Law Committee in Seattle, after she reportedly made numerous attempts over a period of some months to instigate a voluntary program that would see games publishers taking responsibility for educating retailers on how to properly sell games of a violent nature.

　　According to a Seattle Post-Intelligencer report, Dickerson claims that she reached an agreement with various video game special-interest groups, as well as Nintendo of America, that would ensure that both retailers and the public alike would be properly educated on the voluntary rating system employed by most games publishers. When her subsequent phone calls to Nintendo of America went unanswered for five months and no progress was apparent, she decided to introduce the new legislation, which, should it pass into law, will likely be challenged by game-industry organizations.

　　Aware that the games industry will challenge the legislation in court, Dickerson has specifically targeted games that depict violence toward law enforcement officers, such as Grand Theft Auto: Vice City. According to Dickerson, this is because previous legal challenges in other states suggest that's what's necessary for the legislation to hold up in court.