Law Would Levy Fines for Abandoned Carts

Abandoned shopping carts are no longer just unsightly; they are now illegal. City Council members overrode the objections of grocers and gave preliminary approval to an ordinance that would allow the city to seize free-floating carts from public and private property and to fine business owners who want them back.

“Our shopping cart problem is second only to our graffiti problem,” Mayor Joanne Coontz said.

Police Chief John R. Robertson, who introduced the ordinance last week, said the problem is extensive. One of several cart-retrieval companies that work in the city picked up nearly 6,000 carts in a recent 60-day period, he said.

Besides littering the neighborhood, Robertson said, abandoned carts impede traffic and pedestrian flow. The new ordinance would allow officials to seize carts spotted on any property, although a 48-hour notice would be given to owners of private property. The city would destroy or sell any cart not claimed within 90 days.

The law, which would include a hearing process, would further require business owners with more than 10 carts in circulation to have a cart-retrieval plan in place and to post notice to customers that removing the carts is a crime.

Officials have not yet established the amount of fines that businesses would have to pay to retrieve impounded carts.

Several grocers and owners of cart-retrieval services argued against the ordinance, which passed unanimously.

“I’ve seen this ordinance in a handful of cities, and it doesn’t work,” said Beth Beeman of the California Grocers Assn. “All it does is make our lives more difficult.”

Some of the speakers suggested just pursuing those caught taking carts, but Robertson said those cases would be difficult to prove or to prosecute.