Laurel Outlook

LAUREL OUTLOOK
Shopper Sleuths Protect Buyers In Metropolis

NEW YORK.-The butcher's scale read 3½ pounds, but the chicken looked scrawny to its prospective purchaser. She snatched the bird from the store keeper before he could clean it, deftly removed an 8-ounce slug from its gizzard, and identified herself as an inspector of the city bureau of weights and measures here.
She then served the startled butcher a summons to appear at a bureau of hearing on a charge of "short-weighing." He was fined $100 and warned that a second offense would mean criminal court prosecution.
This recent incident in a Manhattan store is typical of the hundreds of retail chiseling cases tracked down annually by the agency's shopping sleuths, whose slogan is "caveat emptor" (let the buyer beware). Although the bureau saves New York housewives millions of dollars a year, numerous instances of cheating unfortunately escape its vigilance.

Many Are Cheated
Fred J. Loughran, bureau director, said today that city storekeepers sold two billion dollars worth of food a year. Of this amount, he estimated that forty million dollars was mulcted from housewives as a result of underhanded practices behind counters.
Loughran cited a variety of methods dishonest retailers use to swindle gullible customers. A recent case involved a grocery-store owner who placed all purchases on large pieces of wrapping paper. As he weighed each purchase, he surreptitiously held down one end of the paper to make the scale indicator go up a few ounces, and thus added a few extra dollars to his cash register every day.
In another instance an inspector caught a butcher who weighed meat on a piece of paper under which he placed a pound of flattened-out bacon. The same agent also trapped a fishmonger who neglected to remove large chips of ice from his fish before he weighed them. Another inspector recently served a summons on a fruit vendor who casually left a few cherries and grapes on his scale as he weighed each purchase.

Develop Subtle Methods
Some ingeniously dishonest tradesmen have developed subtler methods for which they often dupe hundreds of innocent customers until a bureau employee spots the gimmick. One butcher who fell into this category wound a thin piece of string around the tray of his scale, the loose end of which fell to the floor behind the counter. To this end he attached a makeshift wooden pedal. As he placed a purchase on his scale he stepped on the pedal, regulating his touch carefully to add as much weight to a chicken as he desired.
To catch crooked retailers in the act of short-weighing, the bureau's 80 inspectors—four of whom are women—pose as customers and make test purchases.