[Opa Food Guide for Retailers. April 1944]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

April 1944
OH FOOD GUIDE for Retailers»
ÜNITED STATES OFFICE OF PRICE ADMINISTRATION
WASHINGTON 25, D. C.
PRICE ACTIONS
RATION ACTIONS
Pork Prices Down
MPR 336, Amendment 11, effective March 1, 1944:
Prices of Virginia cured hams, bacon, sides, jowls, and shoulders were reduced an average of approxi-inately 10 percent.
DEFINE FORBIDDEN DEALS
The prohibition clauses of the Regulation were expanded so as to forbid any agreement, offer, solicitation, or attempt to sell or deliver any pork cut or sausage product at a price higher than the ceiling price. Previously, such acts had not beert specifically prohibited.
Point Stamps Stay Good
Red and blue point stamps now remain good indefinitely.
Previously announced expiration dates for these stamps have been canceled.
Three new red stamps continue to come into use every second Sunday, as usual.
Five new blue stamps continue to come into use on the first of every month, as usual.
Sugar for Home Canning
Stamp 40 continues good until February 28, 1945, for 5 pounds of sugar to be used for home canning.
{Further Rationing Facts on Next Page}
Two Beef Grades in One Tray
OPA Riding
“Choice” or Grade AA beef may be displayed in the same tray with'“good” or Grade A beef in retail showcases, providing the seller posts a sign on or near the meat stating that it is Grade A beef. You cannot represent any of the meat so displayed to be Grade AA. Moreover, your price for all of the meat so displayed cannot exceed your ceiling price for Grade A beef. Your price must be posted on the meat.
This special ruling was announced by OPA March 13, 1944, at the request of stores which find it desirable to combine the two grades in one tray. Previously, retailers were prohibited from displaying different grades of meat together in the same tray in the showcase.
You must never display meat of a grade lower than A in the same tray with Grade A and Grade AA.
March 1 to March 25
The OPA Food Guide for Retailers brings you a periodic summary of amendments to food price and rationing regulations. This issue covers the orders published between March 1 and March 25, 1944. There also are reported here, from time to time, important rulings, interpretations, and statements of OPA procedure and policy, affecting stores of all four groups.
The Guide should be used together with OPA Retailer’s Bulletins on food regulations. You can obtain copies of these Bulletins upon request at your local War Price and Rationing Board.
By summarizing this information monthly, the Guide will help you keep posted on current developments. You also will find it a convenient reference for checking recent food price and rationing actions. Keep it in a handy place.
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OPA FOOD GUIDE
Sugar Stamps Valid
RRO 3, Amendment 4, effective March 13,1944:
Sugar stamps 30 and 31 in War Ration Book 4 are good for 5 pounds each. No expiration date has been set for either of them. This is expected to relieve the heavy demand that has been occurring at the end of each ration period. OPA will give reasonable notice when an expiration date is set. You may continue to accept stamps 30 and 31 until that date.
Clean Tokens
Please Customers
„ Retailers can please customers by handing out clean, fresh-looking tokens in change for stamps.
You can clean tokens easily with alcohol or a mild cleaning fluid. Soap and water also cleans tokens, but not so quickly as alcohol does.
Never let tokens soak more than a few minutes in water or in any cleaning fluid. They cannot survive a soaking.
LIST OF UNRATIONED MEATS
(See. SO.2, RO 16)
March 25, 1944
Following is a list of animal products which originally were subject to rationing, but which are now excluded from the definition of “meat.” These items are NOT now subject to rationing.
Bacon rinds.
Beef ear meat.
Beef lips.
Beef lungs.
Beef palate meat.
Beef tails.
Beef udders.
Brains.
Diaphragm meat.
Edible blood.
Edible bones.
Feet
Fries.
Gullet meat.
Heart trimmings.
Kidneys. ”
Lamb lungs.
Melts.
Pork backbones.
Pork chitterlings.
Pork duodena.
Pork ears.
Pork faces.
Pork skins (gelatine).
Pork skins (No. 1).
Pork lips.
Pork neck bones.
Pork snouts.
Pork sparerib brisket bones.
Pork tails.
Tongue trimmings.
Tripe.
Veal lips.
Veal lungs.
Veal neck bones.
Veal palate meat.
Veal tails.
Fat Backs NOT Rendering Fats
RO 16, Amendment 117, effective March 23,1944:
The definition of meat is changed so as to state specifically that fat backs, fat-back pork, clear plates and jowls (including jowl squares) are not classed as rendering fats. Rendering fats are excluded from the definition of meat. Therefore, the items named in this paragraph are classed as “meat.”
POST CEILING PRICES
Regulations require that ceiling prices be posted'prominently.1 In the illustration above, the retailer displays community ceiling prices on the sides of an empty carton, suspended at eye level, above a merchandise display.
Transfers of Damaged Foods
RO 16, Amendment 111, effective March 6,1944: RRO13, Amendment 15, effective March 10,1944:
Should you ever have to transfer damaged rationed foods, and undamaged rationed foods mingled with them, to an insurance company or salvage company, you are permitted to do so without collecting points. When you make such a transfer, both you and the purchaser must report within 5 days to the OPA District Office where your principal office is located, stating:
(1)	A description, or approximate description, of the kinds and amounts of foods transferred.
(2)	The name and address of the person to whom the foods' were transferred.
(3)	The date of transfer.
These provisions apply to both the processed foods and the meats-fats rationing programs.
UNSPENT POINT LOANS EXPIRE
Certain retailers in March and April of thin year obtained from OPA a point loan to purchase and store in a freezer certain pork cuts. If you obtained such a loan, you must spend the borrowed points on or before April 30, 1944. Unspent points that you have on hand May 1 must be repaid to OPA, Washington 25, D. C-not later than May 10, 1944.
APRIL
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OPA Acts on Violations
Education and Enforcement
Key to Law Observance
Violations of price and rationing laws are subject to action by Federal enforcement officers, and, in some places, by local or State prosecutors.
OPA follows a strong policy of ex-Elaining the law to those who do not now it and of enforcing the law against those who deliberately break it. This policy protects the honest merchant from unfair competition; it protects the public from profiteering; and it protects the Nation from inflation.
Presently OPA employs less than one Enforcement officer for each county, but this number is rapidly increasing. To conduct the program of explaining the law to retailers, OPA has had the aid of thousands of volunteer workers. The number of volunteers has been growing and the program has won excellent results. In many communities these volunteers have been able to bring down living costs by reducing the number of violations.	.
So that the retailer may know his rights and responsibilities, the following steps are described to show what actions are taken when violations occur.
Common Violations
The most common violations are failure to post point charts or ceiling prices, to display ipeat grades properly, to keep proper records, to sell or buy at or below ceiling prices, to register, or to collect the correct number of ration points. Summaries of the major requirements of the law will be published with future issues of the OPA Food Guide.
Price Panel Information
Violations by retailers are usually handled first by a volunteer assistant to the Price Panel of the local War Price and Rationing Board on a routine inspection visit. Now and then the’visit is the result of a complaint by a customer.
Retailers are requested to remember that price assistants are doing volunteer work for the Government. Volunteers will introduce themselves as representing the Price Panel, and they will show their credentials.
Should they observe violations, they will call attention to them on the spot. They will explain the law to the retailer and request him to comply.
If the retailer agrees, nothing more happens except that a volunteer will visit him later to establish the fact that he is cooperating with the Government. Persistent Violations
If further violations are found, the retailer is likely to receive a summons to appear before the Price Panel. The Price Panel itself has no power to punish the retailer. Its task is to discuss the problem with the retailer and to help him to satisfy the law. If the retailer is guilty of selling above the ceiling price, the Panel may invite him to make a voluntary correction of the overcharge.
It is seldom necessary for action against retail violators to go beyond the Price Panel stage. If a retailer continues to break the law, he is likely to find himself in a second appearance before the Price Panel or subject to more serious action.
If the retailer is a willful or persistent violator, the Price Panel usually certifies his case to the Enforcement Officer for prosecution. The Price Panel, as a rule, sends enough evidence with the certifying statement to warrant immediate action. If not, the Enforcement Officer conducts an independent investigation of the charges. Possible Enforcement Actions
If the charges against a retailer are found to be substantial, the Enforcement Officer has several courses open. He may bring criminal action. There are other corrective measures as well. The kind of action he takes depends on the nature and extent of the violation. Some available actions are:
1.	Suspension Qrders
The quickest results are won by an order suspending the privilege of the dealer to receive or sell the article or the type of article affected by the violation. This action is limited to rationed items, but it can be used when rationed items have been sold at overceiling prices.
A dealer may appeal a suspension order to the Hearing Administrator in the Office of Price Administration in Washington.
2.	Criminal Charges
If there has been a willful violation of the law, criminal charges may be placed, whether or not the violation concerned rationed goods. If violation of the Emergency Price Control Law is charged, the penalty may be 2 years in prison, $5,000 fine, or both. Trial of such charges would be held in a Federal district court.
If the retailer ignores the suspension order, he may be tried on criminal charges in the U. S. District Court for that area under the Second War Powers Act. The penalties may be as much as a year in prison, $10,000 fine, or both. Courts have dealt seriously with those guilty of contempt of suspension orders.
3.	Local or State Prosecution
Frequently the Enforcement Officer will refer violations to local or ¿State officers for prosecution in local or State courts. Several cities and States have local ordinances which make a violation of the Emergency Price Control Act a violation of local or State laws. Among these are New York, Rhode Island, Wisconsin, and such cities as Cleveland and Detroit. Local procedures usually permit a case to be finished much more quickly than in Federal courts. On evidence submitted by» the OPA Enforcement Officer, local or State prosecutors may charge offenders also with violating pure-f ood laws, false-measure laws,
laws covering fraud or misrepresentation, and similar measures.
4.	Injunctions
Should the violation warrant, the Enforcement Officer can seek an injunction order from a court forbidding further violation. In many cases a court will issue a restraining order before the injunction hearing is held. If the retailer disobeys the injunction, then he is in contempt of court and is subject to criminal charges.
5.	Treble Damage Actions
If the retailer sells above the ceiling price to the Government, or to buyers in the course of trade or business, he may be sued by the Government for triple damages.
OPA may not sue for triple damages in behalf of a consumer who has been sold something above the ceiling price, but the consumer may bring suit in these cases. The law allows consumers to collect triple damages or $50, whichever is greater. Where consumers are unidentifiable, the OPA sometimes permits the violator to pay the amount he overcharged into the Federal Treasury as a voluntary contribution.
OPA damage suits for sales above the ceiling price in the course of trade have brought several million dollars into the U. S. Treasury.
6.	License Warning Notices
In appropriate cases, the Enforcement Officer may prefer to issue a formal warning, stating that, if the merchant continues to violate the law, his license will be suspended. If the dealer ignores the warning, the officer may bring suit in any court—Federal, State, or local—to have the dealer’s license suspended, either in whole or in part, either temporarily or permanently. Suspension of a dealer’s license is equivalent to putting him out of business.
7.	Other Measures
Meat slaughterers who violate meat regulations may be deprived of the subsidy payments due them from the Defense Supplies Corporation. This penalty may be used against retailers who slaughter meat. Certain dealers who violate poultry regulations may have the United States Department of Agriculture suspend their license to deal in live poultry.
Most enforcement actions have been directed at key centers of trade, at the wholesale and manufacturing level, to stop violations at their • source and to protect the retailer. Nevertheless, in the month of January alone it was found necessary to begin 120 actions against retailers of meat for price violations; 96 pending actions were completed; and, at the end of the month, 236 actions were still pending. In addition, 92 actions were begun for violation of the meat-rationing order; 111 pending cases were completed; and 260 were still pending. Not all these ration actions, however, were directed at retailers.
Everything possible in the form of information and adjustment is provided to help retailers stay in step with the law, but serious violations have to be subjected to enforcement action. That is essential to the protection of the honest retailers who are supporting price control.
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OPA FOOD CHJIDE
Do NOT Mix Tokens with Stamps
When you transfer points to a supplier, do not mix stamps and tokens together in one envelope. All stamps in the envelope must be of one color. No more than nine tokens may be given to cover the odd points required for any one transaction.
IMPORTANT
This Guide contains only the main points of the amendments named herein. It covers only those amendments which became effective from March 1 to March 25, 1944. Every retailer must comply with all of the provisions of the Regulations and amendments that apply to him. Copies of the Regulations and amendments may be obtained from your nearest OPA office.	'
OPA RETAILER’S FOOD INDEX
OPA publishes a Retailer’s Food Index listing alphabetically most of the items you carry, along with the percentage or cents-per-pound mark-up for each item. If the ceiling price for the item is not found by use of a simple mark-up, the Index refers you to the specific Regulation by which the item must be priced. A revision of the latest printed Index is now in preparation. Separate indexes are published for stores in Groups 1 or 2 and for stores in Groups 3 or 4.
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