Anchorage attorney Tim Cook has a beef with Safeway's meat department scale — he says a Carrs grocery, owned by Safeway, sold him two underweight frozen turkeys around Thanksgiving.

Now he's suing Safeway in Anchorage District Court, accusing the grocery giant of unfair trade practices. In addition to damages, he wants Safeway to make compensation by paying $50,000 to the Food Bank of Alaska or a similar nonprofit.

"It's a matter of trying to do what's right," Cook said, adding he wasn't concerned with the $500 fine associated with trade practices violations. "I'm just looking to force Safeway to step up to the plate and take responsibility for selling the product."

Even if his allegations are true, the amount of money at stake for Cook is small — he believes the Butterball turkeys were each only about 4 or 5 ounces underweight, amounting to being shortchanged under $1 dollar apiece.

Cook bought two turkeys for about $35. According to the complaint, Safeway placed adhesive labels over the original weight labels on all the holiday birds, improperly increasing the weight — and the cost. He estimates that thousands of turkeys were underweight when sold by Safeway.

The pocket money Cook lost on both turkeys isn't the reason for the lawsuit, he said. He argued his lawsuit serves to uphold consumer protection laws. Having handled a number of such cases, Cook said he knows how difficult it can be for a lone individual to make a successful claim.

"Nothing was going to occur unless I stood up and was counted," he said. "And it's tough for people, for an individual to do that. The deck is stacked against you in a lot of ways. It takes a lot of money and resources. Who wants to fight something over 50 cents?"

Cook recounted the Thanksgiving dinner that led to the court battle. His wife noticed something odd about the first turkey's tag when prepping their holiday meal, he said. The tag got wet, and Cook could see one tag on top of another.

A couple of days later, Cook's wife wanted another turkey. He bought one at the Carrs Huffman location, he said. As he left the store, he started peeling the adhesive tag off the item. Underneath was a tag with a different weight. He went back inside and asked the meat department about the discrepancy. He says a manager told him, "Turkeys gain weight when they are frozen."

"Turkeys do not gain weight when they are frozen," Cook wrote in his complaint.

Cook asked his friend at the Alaska Division of Weights and Balances about the potential inaccuracy of the turkeys' weights at the grocery store. The complaint says about the beginning of December, an inspector went to the Carrs and determined the weight displayed on the original tags of the turkeys was accurate and the weight on adhesive tags was too high. The scales in the meat department were off, Cook said in his complaint.

The scales were taken out of service until they were repaired and recertified, said division head Don Brewer. He said if the division gets a complaint about a scale weighing incorrectly, recertifying the scale is is the general course of action.

"As for legal action, it's very unusual to have that associated with a scale being outside of tolerance," Brewer said. By tolerance, Brewer means the margin of error allowed for commercial scales. For a 30-pound scale, three-hundredths of a pound is allowable, he said.

Scales are checked annually statewide, he said. However, scales found out of compliance generally favor consumers -- products actually weigh more than their labels.

Cook hoped Carrs would take further corrective action. It failed to do so, he said. He called the operations division of Safeway but got a return call from the store's meat department, which offered a free turkey in response.

"From my view, Safeway had -- either innocently or intently, who knows on that -- cheated everyone who had bought a turkey," Cook said.

The more Cook thought about the turkeys, the more irritated he became. Every product being weighed in the meat department was inaccurate, he asserted. Additionally, he argued, competing stores had an unfair advantage because of Safeway's business practices. Carrs was selling underweight products while other stores were correctly labeling their products, he said.

"People don't realize consumer protection doesn't just protect the consumer," Cook said. It also protects businesses, he said.

No trial dates have been set for the case. Safeway has been issued a court summons, but hasn't responded to the complaint.