Dec. 3, 1920: Edmonton coal dealers take lumps in court over light loads
City police laid 20 charges against Edmonton coal dealers for delivering orders to customers that were between one pound and 300 pounds lighter than what they paid for.
Approximately 20 citizens testified that coal slips presented by the drivers and purporting to deliver the amount of coal stated on the slip were signed.
“If our evidence is correct, and we believe it is, the public has been getting trimmed right and left,” one police official told the Journal.
All loads of coal delivered in the city were supposedly weighed on government-inspected scales, but the police alleged the dealers had found ways of outwitting the weights to the detriment of purchasers.
In an effort to eliminate abuses, some government officials had been given the right to stop any load of coal, direct the driver to one of the city’s scales and compare the figures shown on the driver’s delivery slip against the weight shown on the city scales.
“We have found cases where coal orders have been delivered and signed for several hundred pounds short in weight,” said police chief A. G. Shute.
It wasn’t a case of “dishonest drivers throwing off a few hundred pounds for their own gain although there may be a case or two of that kind,” he added.
The Humberstone Retail Sales Co., charged with six counts of theft, was the first to appear in city police court.
Magistrate Philip Primrose found Humberstone guilty on two counts of delivering underweight loads of coal, and fined the company $100 and court costs in each case.
Five more coal companies appeared in court later in the week charged with theft through delivering short orders. Among them were the McPeak Coal company charged with delivering a load to the Pantages Theatre that was 395 pounds short of the billed amount; the Dawson Coal Co. charged with delivering a load 240 pounds short of what was billed; and the Imperial Fuel Co., charged with being 570 pounds short on a load. Imperial’s company manager testified the only reason he could give for the discrepancy was that the load sat overnight in the company yard in a part of town alleged to be “thick with coal thieves.”
The Imperial Fuel and Dawson Coal cases were put over for trial. A week later a 17-year-old boy was arrested in the act of stealing coal from the Imperial Coal Co. yards. He told the judge he didn’t think he’d done anything wrong because everybody around the yards picked up coal the same way. czdeb@edmontonjournal. com