Senate Bill S2997

                                BILL NUMBER:S2997

TITLE OF BILL:  An act to amend the general business law, in relation to
posting the cost of products

PURPOSE  OR  GENERAL  IDEA OF BILL:   To establish violations for venues
that fail to properly charge consumers at point of sale consistent  with
the price listed at the product display in the venue.

SUMMARY  OF  PROVISIONS:    Subdivision  1:  Defines venues that will be
subject to this law and the manner in which pricing must be displayed.

Subdivision 2: Establishes that charging a consumer  in  excess  of  the
marked price constitutes a violation.

Subdivision  3:  Failure  to  properly  display  price as established in
section 1 will constitute a violation.

Subdivision 4: Defines consumers redress to a violation  of  subdivision
2.

Subdivision  5:  Establishes that failure to display pricing will result
in, at a minimum, a fine of five hundred for the  first  violation,  one
thousand  for  a  second violation and two thousand five hundred dollars
for subsequent violations.

              

Subdivision 6: Establishes that each  day  an  applicable  venue  is  in
breach of subdivision 1 or 2 will constitute a separate violation.

Subdivision  7:  None  of  the  following subdivisions will apply when a
violation is incurred by human error that is  subsequently  remedied  at
the point of sale.

JUSTIFICATION:    The New York City Department of Consumer Affairs (DCA)
found that compliance declined from last year's low of 48  percent  down
to  only 41 percent. Last year, DCA announced that its inspection of 983
supermarkets throughout the five boroughs resulted in  having  to  issue
violations  in  516  of  those  inspections.  DCA  inspectors  this year
conducted 1,980 supermarket inspections and had to issue  violations  in
1,162  of  those  inspections,  with  total fines assessed of close to a
million dollars.

Inspectors check for accurate pricing, proper taxing  of  products,  and
accuracy  of  scales  and  scanners,  all  of  which affect New Yorkers'
wallets at the check-out counter.

This year doubling the number of  inspections  and  thus  doubling  that
'cost  of  doing business' still was not enough to get the City's super-
markets to get it right at their  check-out  counters.  Public  pressure
hasn't worked, doubling enforcement activity hasn't worked, and so there
is an impetus for this bill, which would both give overcharged consumers

ten  times  the amount they were overcharged and that item for free, and
also triple current fines."

In the past year's inspections the most common violations were for fail-
ure to mark proper quantities and provide required accountability infor-
mation  on  food packaged in the store, adding tax to items that are not
taxable, charging the wrong prices at  check-out  scanners,  failing  to
affix  price tags on individual items, and maintaining inaccurate scales
or failing to make scales available to customers for  products  sold  by
weight.

Under  this  Act,  every  time a consumer is overcharged, they would get
both ten times the amount of the overcharge  and  that  item  for  free.
Both  Connecticut  and  Michigan  have similar, successful laws on their
books, and customer payback is a standard industry best practice.

Second, the Act would triple existing fines.

LEGISLATIVE HISTORY: No prior bill.

FISCAL IMPLICATIONS: None.

EFFECTIVE DATE:  This act shall take effect 90 days after it shall  have
become a law.