They're often found in ditches, on public sidewalks and in back alleys. They're found strewn across neighborhoods. Sometimes they're seen turned over and used as an extra bench at bus stops.
They are abandoned shopping carts, and they've become all too common in San Diego. A local activist group has dedicated itself to curbing abandoned shopping carts.
San Diegans Against Abandoned Shopping Carts (SDAASC) is proposing a city ordinance to help curb what members consider a blight on their city. The ordinance would make retailers responsible for preventing shopping cart theft and retrieval of the carts removed from their property.
The group was founded in July 2006. It was created and led by the late Tim Allen, a known volunteer and activist in the Mira Mesa community. Allen wrote a letter about the shopping cart scourge to the local newspaper, drawing the attention of concerned citizens and neighborhood action groups.
Teresa Thompson, a Mira Mesa resident, responded to one of Allen's letters. She was one of the first to join the group. "We meet at Starbucks every couple weeks and send letters via email to any kind of city or community group recruiting from organizations across San Diego," she says.
Thompson says that while most of their members are from Mira Mesa, they come from as far away as Escondido, La Jolla, University Town Center and many other communities in the San Diego area.
The group looked at many cities in California that had established ordinances for abandoned shopping carts.
The city of Long Beach recently added measures to its existing Shopping Cart Ordinance. Retailers can now be fined $100 for each shopping cart found off property. In addition, if the city finds more than 10 carts from one retailer over a period of 30 days, they will be subject to a hearing.
Burbank's ordinance calls for an electronic containment system if five or more carts are found with in a 24-hour period.
The city of Carson has mandated that businesses that use shopping carts have a retrieval plan. This plan must detail how the retailer will prevent theft and retrieve abandoned shopping carts within the required 24 hours of being reported. Stores must also keep track of their carts, and their carts must carry the store's identification.
The city of Oceanside has proposed an ordinance requiring retailers to adopt a method for both retaining and retrieving abandoned shopping carts. In addition, retailers must clearly display identification and contact information on the shopping carts as well as information about the California law concerning shopping cart theft. The ordinance was proposed in June and provides retailers 60 days to find an efficient method by which they can enforce it.
After studying ordinances in these and other cities, the group drafted a mock-up to be suggested to the San Diego City Council. Their mock ordinance demands that retailers submit an abandoned cart prevention plan. This plan would include a strategy for prevention and retrieval of carts removed from business' premises. The plan would be subject to City Council's approval.
The mock ordinance mandates that carts be retrieved within 24 hours of being reported by a citizen. Within those 24 hours, the store can use a private company to retrieve the cart. If the cart is not reclaimed by the 24-hour deadline, the city will impound it, and the owner will receive a civil fee.
David Heyler, a spokesman for the California Grocers Association, says the problem with abandoned shopping carts varies from place to place. In an area where population is more sparse, fewer consumers will walk groceries home. This creates an atmosphere where shopping carts rarely leave the retailer's lot.
In areas of more dense population, near apartment or condominium complexes, shopping cart abandonment is more prevalent. Customers who live close enough to grocery and retail stores may not drive. Some prefer to walk, while others have no transportation. They walk to the store and walk their purchases back in a shopping cart. They later abandon the cart.
Thompson suggests that retailers post signs around their stores and notices on shopping carts letting people know that the removal of a shopping cart from the retailer's property is theft. Some retailers in other parts of the country issue carts to their customers for a small deposit of usually less than $1. The deposit is refunded once the cart is returned.
El Tigre Supermarket in Escondido offers a free shuttle to its store for those without transportation. It saves the market the cost of replacing shopping carts and adds to its level of customer service.
The San Diegans against Abandoned Shopping Carts have suggested the use of granny carts. These light-weight metallic collapsible carts have proven to be a durable and comparable substitute for shopping carts.
Some would have the retailers offer them free. Others would have the retailers sell them at cost for no profit. These granny carts would belong to customers, so they could roll them to and from the store with no consequence to either party. The city of Burbank has offered a rebate to its citizens for 50 percent of the cost of personal shopping carts-up to $20.
Some retailers have security guards on site to monitor cart theft. This can be a costly added expense.
Shopping carts can cost from $75 to $150 each. Heyler says retailers are quite concerned about the theft of shopping carts. "Most responsible retailers will know and do what is more cost-effective to prevent losses," he says.
One option to prevent shopping carts from being removed from the retailers property is that of wheel locks. Carttronics has created a solution called Cart Anti-theft Protection System (CAPS) in which the wheels of a shopping cart automatically lock once the cart leaves the boundary line of a business.
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