Easter Candies Banned Across The Country Still Sold In Some City Stores

NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) -- Will there be something illegal in your kid's Easter basket this year? A popular treat -- banned in the United States -- can still be found widely available across the city.

At the famed Sorriso Salumeria in Astoria, big chocolate eggs are ready to put a smile on someone's face come Easter morning. The owner says he no longer stocks the now illegal "Kinder Eggs," filled with a toy surprise inside.

"It's a minute toy," owner Frank DePaola tells CBS2's Tony Aiello, "and children have a chance of choking on them so they kind of banned them."

Regulators in Washington DC did ban them as a choking hazard for young children, but up and down the streets of the city it's easy to find stores that sell the small "surprise" eggs.

Some parents think the ban is well-intentioned nonsense.

"It's really ridiculous," Astoria resident Diana Gabriel said. "My son has had these. You know, it's fine. Nothing's gonna happen."

The little egg is a welcomed treat for her son Enzo, who turns six on Thursday. Diana says he's had many of the candies while visiting family in Europe where they're wildly popular.

The chocolate eggs with the surprise inside are legal in Canada, which sometimes leads to a surprise at the border instead. Travelers trying to bring Kinder Eggs into the United States have been detained, and thousands of the treats have been confiscated since the ban went into effect.

But somehow, someone who has a confection connection manages to smuggle them into the States.

DePaola says a man comes into his shop from time to time offering him the forbidden candy for sale, but he simply doesn't buy them.

"It's not worth the fine," he says.

Fans of the eggs have hatched a plan -- an online petition -- asking the feds to back off the ban on the sweet treats with the toy surprise.