Long Arm of Law Grabs for a Bit of Cheese

The Big Cheese in this story is Ventura County Dist. Atty. Michael D. Bradbury.

The Little Cheese is a foil-wrapped wedge of “Laughing Cow,” mysteriously missing from a local consumer’s grocery purchase.

Put them together and they add up to an interstate tale of sleuthing, suspense, punishment and retribution.

Oh yeah, and big bucks too.

Our story began last year, when the county’s Department of Weights and Measures received a phone call from a concerned local citizen. Seems a package of Lunch-To-Go--a box of items such as fruit juice, cookies, crackers and cheese wedges--contained one less piece of cheese than stated on the label.

The caller was outraged. “She said she didn’t think companies should be able to get away with it,” said Deputy Dist. Atty. David Fairweather.

In a county where the good guys always get their man and no bad deed goes unpunished, the authorities moved swiftly. The case clearly had major consumer fraud written all over it.

After an inspector made the rounds of about a dozen local grocery stores and discovered that every box of Lunch-To-Go had at least one less piece of cheese than promised, the heat went up. That’s when Fairweather, who works with the consumer and environmental protection division of the D. A.’s office, was called in to sniff around.

It wasn’t pretty.

“We did some investigating and calculated what the cost of one of those pieces of cheese is,” Fairweather said. “We estimated it would cost about 10 cents.”

*

The cheese trail, still hot, didn’t stop at the Ventura County line. And this was where the real skills of our county’s finest came in to play.

“We did some more investigating, talking to distributors, and we found a warehouse in Los Angeles County,” Fairweather said.

Stocked with drugs? No. AK-47 assault rifles? No. Something far worse.

Thousands of Lunch-To-Go products, each one missing a piece of cheese and just waiting to find its way to unknowing consumers. As if whoever was behind this dastardly deed really thought he could get away with it.

“I truly, honestly was not trying to get away with anything,” said Steve Odsather, owner and manager of Little Brook Foods Inc., the Washington-based company that distributes Lunch-To-Go.

Odsather was contacted in June by the county D. A.’s office. He said he told them that he had made a mistake. As long as the net weight of the product was correct, he said, he didn’t realize that he had to repackage the box to show the exact number of items inside.

Sure. Like he really expects us to believe that he was doing the same thing as those cereal boxes that have about an inch of flakes at the bottom and a disclaimer that the product is sold by weight, not content.

Odsather said he immediately had his product removed from grocery shelves up and down the West Coast for repackaging, offered to pay Ventura County $40,000 in restitution and promised never to do it again.

But what he seemed to forget was that this is Ventura County.

You know, the place where, since 1991, the district attorney’s office has said it can no longer prosecute most misdemeanors.

The place where demoralized wildlife officials say poachers flock to, because there is no prosecution.

The place where county Dist. Atty. Bradbury said he would have to start the 1991-92 fiscal year with at least a $500,000 deficit.

You know, the wrong place to mess with.

“We consider that to be grossly inadequate,” Fairweather said of Odsather’s offer. “That doesn’t even begin to meet the restitution of the case.”

Perhaps that is because, unlike prosecuting many other offenses, there’s a lot more potentially to be gained from this kind of a case.

*

Last week, Bradbury filed a false advertising lawsuit against Odsather’s company. According to Fairweather, Odsather’s estimated cost of restitution would be $50,000, plus civil penalties that could double the amount.

The restitution money will go into a fund, he said, from which consumers who can produce a receipt for a Lunch-To-Go may receive a dime.

And the civil penalty part of the fine? The entire amount gets pocketed by Ventura County, thank you very much.

Odsather claims not to have the money. He said that his is a family business with five employees and that he has never been cited for anything wrong before. He has a wife and two kids. This fine, he said, would surely put him out of business.

Fairweather doesn’t seem to be losing any sleep about it.

“Do we want to put him out of business? No,” he said. “But we do want to have meaningful penalties. We need to send a message.”

That message, to any of you who missed it, seems clear:

Never underestimate the long arm of the law in the city that never sleeps.

And don’t forget to count your M&M;’s. It could mean revenue for our county.