"Small as hell"... "Too tiny"... "The new boxes are just too small"...

Size matters ? when it comes to Customs declaration forms.

So pity those with long names unlikely to fit into the new layout. Pity too passengers with large handwriting. And as for the near-sighted, best hand them some more powerful specs.

The new forms designed by Bermuda Customs got short shrift during a street poll of ten people in Hamilton this week. The question was: "What do you think of the new layout of the form?"

Some 60 percent found fault, while 30 percent gave a thumbs-up. Ten percent shrugged: they did not know.

To the critics, it seemed the new forms should be accompanied with a magnifying glass when presented to arriving air passengers. And they had this tiny query: Just what was wrong with the old form?

One local actor said his name would not fit in 11 boxes.

"Are they punching it into a computer? I don't think so. They need to rethink this. The boxes are too small."

Collector of Customs Winifred Fostine DeSilva, however, put up a big defence of her new cards.

She thought the boxes in the new form were the same size if not bigger than the old form.

"It's one third bigger. It's wider and longer."

She also said the form was tested before release.

"The focus group were okay with the sizing of the boxes."

Ms DeSilva added the form was changed to help Customs officers catch duty dodgers. For the first time, the card asked passengers if they were bringing animals, plant material or food to the Island.

And it also required passengers to say whether they were bringing weapons or obscene articles into Bermuda, and to record exactly how much alcohol and tobacco they had on them.

"This will do a better job of getting statistics that assist us to say what duty free goods are important and enable us to make sounder judgments on what should and should not be duty free," she said.

She said the new form would "speed up the process at the Airport".

But she added the amount of searches by Customs officers would not decrease.

She said that 40 minutes was within regulations for the amount of time taken for passengers to get through Customs.

"Compliance checks are part of the our regulations."

The new Customs declaration forms had been handed out to airlines and were already in use, she said.