City Works to Repeal Shopping Cart Law

City officials will ask the League of California Cities to sponsor state legislation that would repeal a 1996 bill restricting how cities can rid streets of abandoned shopping carts.

The proposal would repeal the mandate that shopping cart owners be given three days’ notice to pick up abandoned carts before cities can retrieve them, said Kristine Thalman, the city’s intergovernmental and community relations officer.

“Repealing it would give local governments more authority to enact their own ordinances” regarding the shopping cart issue, Thalman said.

The 1996 legislation, which took effect in January and was supported by the California Grocers Assn., has riled city officials who want abandoned carts removed immediately from streets and public areas because they litter streets and give the impression of neighborhood blight.

Anaheim will seek support from other Orange County cities to repeal the legislation.

Councilman Lou Lopez said garnering support from other cities will show “our legislators that the concern is not just Anaheim’s, but it’s a concern of the cities throughout the county.”

“This will hopefully spur our legislators to take some action to correct the problem,” Lopez said.

Thalman said the city will present a resolution, adopted by the City Council this week, to the Orange County division of the League of California Cities next month for consideration at the league’s conference in October.