>Weight watchers
>
> THE great metrication battle has taken an uglier turn. On
> Friday magistrates in Sutton, Surrey became the first
> actually to deprive a man of his livelihood for refusing to
> obey the EU directive that shopkeepers may sell goods
> only by metric measures.
>
> Instead of prosecuting Peter Collins, a market trader, for
> continuing to sell his fruit in pounds and ounces, Sutton
> council tried to do it by the back door, by withdrawing his
> licence to trade.
>
> Mr Collins claimed it contravened the European
> Convention on Human Rights not to allow him to earn a
> living by selling in the only weights his customers
> understand.
>
> The magistrates disagreed, telling Mr Collins they would
> order him to pay the council's costs of �13,500 if he was
> rash enough to join his case to the appeal to be made
> later this year by the Metric Martyrs Fund
> (www.metricmartyrs. com).
>
> Outside the courtroom the fund's organiser, Neil Herron,
> asked a Sutton trading standards official why they were
> not prosecuting Tesco and Asda for selling milk in plastic
> cartons by the pint (Brussels allows sale of milk by the
> pint but British regulations permit this only when it is in
> glass bottles).
>
> The official said that if a complaint was received, it would
> be investigated. Mr Herron replied that he was hereby
> making that complaint, and could they please get on with
> it. Watch this space.
--
UK Metrication Association: http://www.metric.org.uk/
