CHECKING IT OUT: The district attorney’s two-year...

CHECKING IT OUT: The district attorney’s two-year crackdown on bad checks, urged by local businesses tired of being ripped off, seems to be working. . . . Merchants had been collecting on about 70% of their bad checks. The program--tracking down delinquents--is boosting that back up to 94%, or an extra half a million dollars. Complaints are running 20,000 a year. “One major grocer in Orange County has about 2,000 bounced checks a week,” says program director Donald Mealing.