BagOfNothing.com

City crews in the Des Moines suburb of Ankeny are using garlic salt to melt snow and ice on streets from Tuesday’s storm.

The salt was donated by Tone Brothers Inc., a top spice producer headquartered in Ankeny.

Public Works Administrator Al Olson says the company donated 18,000 pounds of garlic salt to use on its 400 miles of roads.

Olson doesn’t have details, but he says the salt would have ended up in the landfill, so the company donated it. A telephone call Wednesday to Tone Brothers wasn’t immediately returned.

He has been trying to pay his fine in pennies, but the town is demanding he change his way of paying.

“It’s very easy to count. It goes in 10s. I mean, there’s five rows of 10s,” Frank Gilberti said.

Gilberti showed 112 rolls of pennies to CBS station WCBS-TV in New York City. He said he thought he could use the coins to pay a traffic fine at the Bloomfield Municipal Court.

“I went to the bank and got $56 worth of rolled pennies and went down to the court house and they refused to take it. They had told me to bring cash. I was under the assumption this was cash.”

Non-cents? Not really. Pennies are legal tender. In fact, at the courthouse WCBS-TV found a sign saying cash is accepted.

That’s why the Nutley resident said he fought back, calling the court and convincing workers there to take his pennies.