At a time in life when many men are enjoying their grandchildren, Ronald Weinstock cherishes being the most hated man in the supermarket. Weinstock, 62, is the nemesis of butchers who sneak a thumb on the scale, packagers who lie about content and store managers too venal or too lazy to change the unit pricing on the shelf to...
Weinstock, 62, is the nemesis of butchers who sneak a thumb on the scale, packagers who lie about content and store managers too venal or too lazy to change the unit pricing on the shelf to match the actual food.
And it’s not just food.
Weinstock has spent the last 34 years as part of an anonymous band of perfectionists who guard New Jersey from the legion of cheats, short-changers, grifters, frauds and the just plain inefficient.
Better known as the inspectors for the state Office of Weights & Measures, they are arguably the most important people in state government — at least in terms of daily influence — yet the most invisible. Every time a person in New Jersey flushes a toilet, drives a car, buys an apple or swallows a prescription pill, they unknowingly depend on some device monitored by Weights & Measures.
Indirectly, Weights & Measures affects about half of the $430 billion New Jersey gross domestic product, according to federal estimates. Yet the division is struggling with a hiring freeze and has just 12 inspectors and five investigators, nearly half of whom are of retirement age, said department officials.
The office lost nearly 15 percent of its work force in the past five years, and "I don’t know what we’d do if everyone decided to retire at the same time," said acting chief Robert Campanelli, 58, who is eligible to retire after 27 years with the office.
Inspectors with NJ Office of Weights and Measures make sure that items at a supermarket are the weight the packaging say it should be.Weights & Measures inspectors spend years mastering sometimes complex tools and honing their ability to spot fraud, Campanelli said. That knowledge, however, is not being passed on because the division has not been allowed to hire an apprentice in five years, he added.
The agency has found a new champion in a former federal prosecutor who admits he really had "no idea of the full impact of Weights & Measures" until May, when he was named acting director of the Division of Consumer Affairs, which includes Weights & Measures.
"I was amazed at the range of things affected by the division, everything from pill counters to supermarket scanners to radar guns," said Thomas Calcagni. "Weights & Measures sort of flies under the radar, except when people realize they are being ripped off in a big way.
"This is not a division that anyone wants to see understaffed."
Recession is a boom time for Weights & Measures, whose $5.6 million operating budget — unchanged from last year — is funded solely by registration, inspection and licensing fees and penalties, Calcagni said.
When gas hovered around $4 a gallon in 1998, it was the Office of Weights & Measures that uncovered price gouging at more than one-third of the 1,023 New Jersey gas stations inspected.
This summer, as gold reached a record of more than $1,200 an ounce, it was Weights & Measures that inspected 50 gold-buying operations in the state. It found violations at 49 of them.
With school districts throughout New Jersey cutting costs by refusing to bus any student within a 2.5-mile limit, Weights & Measures is the official arbiter of distance, which is by roads traveled, not how the crow flies.
The department also inspected Newark Liberty International Airport scales after airlines increased baggage charges. Only nine scales out of 300 were wrong, but consider that approximately 33 million people fly out of the airport each year.
Inspector Jim Logothetis, of the Office of Weights and Measures, check the weight of a meat for sale at a supermarket in Union.PREVENTION
"It’s not just about over-charging," said Carol Hockert, chief of the Weights & Measures division of the National Institute of Standards and Technology. "You don’t need a fireman until your house is on fire, but you need a Weights & Measures guy every day."
NIST is the national agency charged with developing measurements for federal and state governments and industry. It consults with government and the National Conference on Weights and Measures, a national nonprofit agency that publishes handbooks that are the bibles of standardized measurement.
NIST gets the glory with esoteric measurement such as the diameter of a nanopore — roughly 10,000 times smaller than that of a human hair. But it is on the state level where the nuts-and-bolts measuring keeps life fairer and safer.
"The state Weights & Measurements guys keep the marketplace from chaos and keep people alive," Hockert said. "Things that aren’t standardized weights can break in a pretty spectacular way."
Imprecision rarely causes sensational impact, but trucks can crash because they are carrying too much weight for their axles. Tanning beds with defective timers can cause burns. Propane tankers under improper pressure can explode.
"Do we like paying fees to get weighed? Of course not, but it’s a lot less expensive than sharing the road with overweight trucks," said Gail Toth, executive director of the New Jersey Motor Truck Association. "Besides, truckers use a lot of fuel. We would lose much more if Weights & Measures didn’t go after the cheating at the gas stations."
Ronald Weinstock, a meat specialist with the NJ Office of Weights and Measures, checks the fat content of meat for sale at a supermarket in Union. A small ground beef patty is cooked and the drippings tested for fat content. This ground beef was labeled as having 15 percent fat, and the tests show that the labeling was correct.‘Critical Area’
The New Jersey Division of Weights & Measures has been around since 1911, but the concept dates back millennia. It is the only agency in state government that can directly trace its roots to the Magna Carta and the Code of Hammurabi.
A sub-agency of the Department of Law and Public Safety, Weights & Measures is a "critical area" of New Jersey government, said Paul Loriquet, spokesman for state Attorney General Paula Dow.
"This is a specialized agency and we are aware of the age of the inspectors," Loriquet said, adding that despite government downsizing, "it is important to maintain staffing."
Located about 100 yards from Routes 1&9 in the Avenel section of Woodbridge, the Weights and Measures headquarters is a no-frills building surrounded by a high fence topped with barbed wire.
Here at measurement central, $30,000 scales capable of measuring the weight of the period at the end of this sentence share space with the official state ruler — a 100-foot long steel rule that is the official standard of length for everything from mile markers to drug-free school districts — and scales that can measure up to 400,000 pounds.
The State Police actually weigh the trucks on New Jersey roads, but Weights & Measures certifies the scales. The office is responsible for inspecting meters on some of the more explosive loads, such as gas and propane, under the supervision of Anthony Neri, 67, who has been with the office for 43 years.
The inspectors can’t cut back on trucking certifications. At issue would be about $400 million in federal highway funds.
Other inspectors certify the tuning forks used to calibrate radar speed detectors or any device that might be used in a criminal case. They approve rulers used to plumb the holds of giant tankers at the port, the fuel dispensers at the airports and have monitoring power over water meters and commercial scales.
In all, the agency said it registers 173,900 devices, more than three times the number registered in a state like Oregon, but with essentially the same size staff.
There is support from approximately 60 county Weights and Measures agents who handle simpler tasks, such as inspecting gold and jewelry scales, investigating local complaints and certifying pumps at the state’s 3,000 gas stations, state officials said.
The enforcement section is where Weights & Measures directly affects the consumer.
"Life is hard enough," said chief investigator Herbert Sehgel, 57, who has been with the division for 36 years. "People should get what they are paying for."
One recessionary tactic is downsizing groceries. What people continue to call a pound of coffee, for example, is now usually 13 ounces. Cereal manufacturers vary the amount in the box depending on the cost of grain, according to Harvard Business School researchers.
Reducing contents is not illegal if it is noted on the package. What is illegal is grocery stores that neglect to change the unit price on the shelf.
"Even on my day off, it’s sometimes hard to get through a grocery store without finding violations," said Weinstock. "I take this all personally, which is why stores hate me and my wife won’t shop with me."
The office monitors scanner violations and improper packaging anywhere and unit pricing in all stores over 4,000 square feet.
Jim Logothetis, a inspector with the NJ State Office of Weights and Measures, brings his scale through the aisles as he begins to check the weight of items for sale at a supermarket in Union.In terms of supermarkets, for example, Weinstock also checks meat to ensure that specific cuts are what they pretend to be and that lower-fat — and more expensive — ground beef really has less fat.
The office "levels the playing field for retailers," said Linda Doherty, of the New Jersey Food Council, which represents supermarkets, manufacturers and distributors. The council endorses expanding the division. "The regulations offer a level of compliance in this highly competitive market."
Campanelli agreed: "There’s so much more we could do. We really are the last line of defense for many consumers."