At least once a year a state inspector makes sure store scales are accurate and that the store is following state law.

State inspects weights, measures of nearly everything

NANCY HICKS / Lincoln Journal Star | Posted: Saturday, June 23, 2007 7:00 pm

You pick out  eight green Granny Smith apples for a pie, put them in the plastic bag and seal with a twisty tie.

At the grocery check out, the computerized scale weighs your apples, automatically deducting the weight of the thin plastic bag and twisty — which is1/100th of a pound.  

So, you pay for just the apples.  That’s the law.

In fact, at least once a year a state inspector makes sure the store scales are accurate and that the store is following state law.

This may seem trivial. What's 1/100th of a pound?

On $1.89-a-pound apples, that plastic sack and tie would cost less than 2 cents, said Steve Malone, administrator for the Division of Weights and Measures, which is part of the state Department of Agriculture.

 “But multiply that by 1,000 bags, you’re talking money,” he said.

With pricier products the packaging — state inspectors call this the "tare" — adds up quickly.

The paper bag for bulk coffee can weigh 5/100th of a pound. At $10 a pound, that would be  50 cents for the bag, Malone says.

Life is filled with transactions based on weights and measurements. 

You put 16 gallons of gas in the car.

You pick up a 10-pound bag of fertilizer at the garden store. 

Order new carpet, fill a propane bottle, get a cord of firewood, buy a pound of No. 8 nails.  

You have oxygen delivered to your home. Pick up a liter of Pepsi at the store.

 Each of these transactions involves a weighing or measuring device.  

In fact, 34,400 weighing and measuring devices are registered in Nebraska, each one checked annually by an inspector from the Division of Weights and Measures, according to Malone.

The state inspects everything from the railroad track scale that  might weigh 260,000 pounds of grain headed out of the state to the candy scale that measures 2 ounces of chocolate creams.

The tests may be simple — a single scale in a coffee shop — or time- consuming — a random sampling in a warehouse filled with thousands of turkeys headed for Thanksgiving tables.

Modern devices like mass flow meters measure the liquid fertilizers flowing through a vibrating tube. 

The state makes sure the mass flow meters and other, more ordinary devices are accurate.

In early June, Lincoln-based inspector Rick Loock spent the morning at a local grocery story, a paradise of weighing and measuring devices. 

He tested more than a dozen  scales, making sure scanning equipment was recording the correct prices and the scales were adjusting for the tear.

He also set up his own scale (tested in a state lab) in an aisle and checked out the accuracy of weight on packaged meat.  

When you buy 3 pounds of hamburger, the weight on the package should not include the weight of the container, the plastic wrap and the soakers under the meat.

Loock's surprise visit and random sample of meats indicated the Russ's IGA at 66th and O streets was accurately labeling its meat.

These inspections require careful attention to detail and specialized equipment.

At the grocery, Loock used a case of weights ranging from 2 pounds to 1/1000th of a pound, a wafer-thin piece of metal . 

"If you sneeze it will blow away," he said.

Loock carries another 900 pounds of heavier weights in the van. And he pulls a specially built trailer with 5-gallon canisters to check gasoline station pumps.   

His work in the Lincoln area includes more than 950 registered scales and more than 2,400 gas pumps.

And every day, he finds errors.  

Most are mistakes, said Loock, and most are quickly corrected.

And some errors are to the detriment of the business: a scale that weighs too light for example. 

Nebraska does not have fines to encourage compliance with state law, but the threat of criminal prosecution or revocation of a business’s  permit to operate usually brings the few who balk into compliance, said Malone.  

The division inspects weighing and measuring devices at least once a year and does spot checks when there are consumer complaints.

The division gets 150 to 200 complaints a year, most on gas stations. The number of complaints tend to rise with the price of gas, Malone said. 

A little less than 10 percent of those complaints turn out to be valid when an inspector tries to duplicate a consumer’s experience, Malone said. 

For example, following up on a recent complaint, Loock found the gas pumps were accurate. But when a customer inserted a credit card the area on the pump giving the price of the gas went dark.  

That pump was tagged until fixed.

Reach Nancy Hicks at 473-7250 or nhicks@journalstar.com.