Making a Career of Numbers : Watchdog: Bill Korth, director of county Department of Weights and Measures, and his staff count such things as chocolate chips and tissues.

They make sure that there are 16 chips in every Chips Ahoy, two scoops of raisins in Raisin Bran and 1,000 sheets of toilet paper on each roll.

They carry badges vesting them with the power to strip shelves of bogus products, stand tall against corporate giants and enforce their findings with pricey litigation.

They’re the staff of the Ventura County Department of Weights and Measures, who solemnly protect residents from the heartbreak of false consumer promises.

“If it’s got a weight, measurement or length of time, we check it,” said director Bill Korth, whose wall calendar includes monthly centerfolds of historical measuring devices.

“Sure, a lot of people think we’re odd,” said Korth, 62, who has been with the department for 29 years. “But somebody has to measure bedsheets, the length of garden hoses and whether a fireplace log really burns for three hours like it is supposed to.”

The bedsheets usually measure up, but Korth has investigated his share of so-called 50-foot garden hoses.

“I found a bunch that were 49 feet long,” he said.

Several years ago, the department discovered a company shorting gum balls. There were just two missing per pack, but that added up to 2 tons of missing gum balls in the state of California.

Korth keeps a dusty cabinet of “problem products” beside his collection of state-certified stopwatches, tape measures and weight sets. Inside, the shelves are filled with moldy boxes of Tuna Helper, corn chips and Milk Duds--some that are two decades old.

There is a package of Christmas tree icicles boasting 2,000 tinsel strands.

“There were only 1,670,” Korth said.

Then there is the case of the short-sheeted toilet tissue: There weren’t 1,000 sheets as advertised. There were only 997.

“When a roll of toilet paper is three sheets short, consumers are cheated out of a foot,” Korth said.

Although some residents call in complaints, most people don’t realize that they’re being shortchanged because they don’t take the time to count the sheets or, say, weigh a box of Triscuits, Korth said.

That’s where the Department of Weights and Measures comes in.

As far as Korth is concerned, his staff of five consumer cops is there to ensure that Ventura County residents get what they pay for.

“We’re helping the average person who can’t help themselves. How do people know they’re getting five gallons of gas when they pay for it? Because we inspect the pumps.”

All gas pumps, scanners and official scales in the county must bear the Weights and Measures seal of approval. Every county in the state has such an agency, although some are more active than others.

The enforcement of weights and measures in the county dates back to 1915, but can be traced to the dawn of commerce.

“Ye shall do no unrighteousness in judgment, in meter yard, in weight or in measure. Just balances, just weights . . . shall ye have,” reads one passage from Leviticus.

Even the early urbanists of Mesopotamia and the agrarian Egyptians standardized weights and measurements to ensure fair commerce and aid in tax collection. But back then, if someone was caught cheating, they might be stoned to death or lose a hand.

These days, when a pattern of mislabeled products is uncovered, the culprits are taken to court.

Although a relatively obscure arm of county government, the Department of Weights and Measures rakes in the money for taxpayers.

On average, the department wins $86,000 a year through litigation with corporations shorting customers.

Ten years ago, the department won a $250,000 settlement from Nabisco for deceptively packaging brownies with cardboard filler to make them appear more numerous.

“That’s a 12606,” Korth said somberly, citing California legal code.

Earlier this month, Radiator Specialty Co. paid the county $25,000 for putting just 9.9 ounces of radiator sealant and conditioner in bottles advertising 11 ounces. As is often the case, the error was accidental--the result of a chemical miscalculation.

It takes a certain kind of individual to separate the raisins from the bran flakes and count the number of matches in a matchbox.

The consumer cops peruse supermarkets and other shops like chemists in a lab. Equipped with electronic scales, a set of weights and large beakers, they inspect everything in sight. Carefully.

Korth wonders if his fondness for the pedantic runs in the family.

He once caught his daughter counting the number of granules inside her cold medicine capsule: 300.

But that’s nothing out of the ordinary for Ventura County’s most cautious consumer.

“My wife hates shopping with me because I’m always spotting errors,” Korth said. “But I can’t help it.”