L.A. Targets Stray Shopping Carts

Fed up with abandoned shopping carts scattered throughout neighborhoods, the Los Angeles City Council voted unanimously Wednesday to institute strict new regulations that would require supermarkets and other stores to get them off the streets.

“You see them all over the place,” said Councilman Greig Smith, who said he recently counted 12 carts during a 1 1/2-mile drive through his San Fernando Valley district.

Under the new law, city businesses with more than 10 shopping carts would be required to contract with a cart retrieval company to pick up carts within 24 hours.

Stores that could not show they had a valid retrieval contract would be fined $1,000 a month and would be unable to renew their business licenses.

The city attorney’s office has 60 days to draft an ordinance, which council members could approve in the fall.

Smith’s plan also calls for stores to put identification signs on their carts that include telephone numbers to call to have them picked up.

Stores would also be required to post signs at exit doors and around parking lots warning customers that it is a misdemeanor to remove or possess a shopping cart.

Elektra Kruger, a resident of Shadow Hills in the San Fernando Valley, told council members that she approved of the regulations. “I think these carts would be far more apt to get picked up, and far less likely to end up in our streets,” she said.

Grocery store companies did not comment, saying they were not yet familiar with the proposed law. But several business owners with storefronts across the street from a 24-hour Ralphs applauded the move.

Robert Craymer, an interior designer, said he has had to clear as many as 20 abandoned carts left near his doorway.

“At this particular corner,” Craymer said, pointing outside his shop to the intersection of 3rd Street and La Brea Avenue, “shopping carts have drifted into traffic and caused numerous traffic accidents.”

Robert Loscalzo, the owner of a furniture store down the street from Craymer, also supports the ordinance, saying that the presence of a nearby recycling center makes the clutter of shopping carts particularly bad in the neighborhood.

“Carts are stolen by these people pushing around mountains of bottles and cans,” he said, “then left on the street.”

Over the last few years, the Los Angeles Catholic Worker organization, which helps people on Skid Row, has given out thousands of shopping carts to the homeless.

But at least one person did not see what the fuss was about.

“I love shopping carts; they’re so handy,” said Ruben Gonzalez, a clerk at a local china shop. Occasionally, he admitted, when hauling a heavy load from the grocery, he has pushed a cart off a supermarket’s lot.

“Everybody does it,” he said. He paused before adding: “But of course, I always bring them back.”