Scanning Inspectors Under Fire

Criticism has been leveled at the Seattle, Wa., weights and measures department after it agreed to a sixweek moratorium on unannounced inspections of price scanners at local home centers and having inspectors read store personnel their rights before conducting inspections (see The Merchant, Feb., p. 3l).

Home Depot, Payless, Fred Meyer, Kmart and Office Max stores were cited because they had more than four errors against the consumer among 1000 items chosen for scanning. Rather than pay the fines and overhaul their systems, the retailers requested continuances for other citations while they "negotiate" with the city.

After paying a fine for a citation at one of its stores, Ernst has since joined the group.

But, according to the Seattle Times, what's to negotiate? The stores had inaccurate prices, yet claimed they needed more time to comply with the law.

After it was cited, Eagle Hardware paid a fine, then renovated its internal system of auditing and synchronizing shelf, advertised and scanner prices. The company now has a price-change person at every store.

The next time the Eagle store was inspected it received a perfect score.

"We totally went through a check of our stores, changed procedures, sent in weekly audits that are monitored and gathered information from our 18 stores," said John Foucrier, exec. v.p.-adminstrative operations. "I don't think it's space science. You just decide, 'Here's what we're gonna do... We're going to audit 'til we get it right."'

During the moratorium, inspections were permitted only at the request ofa consumer. Just before the cease fire ended, inspectors responding to a complaint checked out prices at a West Seattle Kmart. Out of 100 items scanned, they found 25 errors (21 of them against the customer). The store was issued a warnins.

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