The Observation Deck

I know a lot of apartment buildings have smuggled carts indoors.

Shopping carts make great strollers. Turn them upside down and they make great playpens, too!





Carts are piling up City may charge more to return them to stores
Thursday, August 31, 2006
By Lisa Novatny
Lakewood Sun Post
Abandoned shopping carts apparently are everywhere.

Over the past few years, the number of misplaced carts has grown, costing both the city and stores the carts time and money.

Led by Councilwoman Nickie Antonio, the housing committee has been researching the increase of abandoned shopping carts, along with the impact and cost of removal and retrieval.

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According to Antonio, in 2005 the refuse department collected approximately 99 carts littered throughout the city. So far in 2006, 170 have been collected.

With carts strewn throughout the community, city workers from the refuse department are left to pick them up, despite their other responsibilities. The discarded carts are then retrieved brought to the department's Berea Road location.

There is a lot of work involved in dealing with the carts plus it takes workers away from doing other services within the community, Antonio said.

After the department collects a handful of carts from a certain store, they contact the business to come pick up them up.

In order to retrieve them, stores are required to pay a fine of $5 per cart.

With the amount of abandoned carts on the rise, the housing committee is looking into ways of cleaning up.

Talking with the owners of stores such as Giant Eagle, 14013 Detroit Ave., Tops, 14100 Detroit Ave., and Marc's, 14861 Detroit Ave., the committee hopes to come up with some constructive solutions to keep the carts secure.

Some recommended options include raising the mandatory fine, instituting a system where customers pay to use the carts, receiving a refund upon return, or having residents purchase their own carts, eliminating the excess cart flow throughout the community.

If a fine increase is implemented, Antonio hopes that it reflects how much it costs for city workers to retrieve the carts.

My hopes are to find a middle ground to eliminate the problem, said Antonio.

Our ultimate goal is to not have abandoned carts on the city streets, said Antonio. We are taking this issue seriously. We're really trying to make the city look good and save money effectively and efficiently wherever we can.

This is kind of funny. It isn't like the people taking these carts are doing so in secret. You will see some kindly older woman pushing her grocery cart down Detroit Ave. brimming with food and will take this cart up to her apartment or leave it in the lobby when done or outside. I am glad the city is charging the stores for this. They are very clear that anything stolen from our cars in their parking lots is our problem, not theirs. I think retrieving their stolen carts is their problem, not ours.

This all stems from downsizing, of course. Back in the day, they had employees take the cart out to your car and empty it for you (and could earn a tip doing it). Some still will if you ask specifically, I am sure, but now when the carts leave the building, that is it.

Marc's plaza would be a mess, more than it is, but they could do what Heinen's does and not let carts leave the store and instead line them up for pick up by car. For seniors or people who walk in the neighborhood something could be worked out where they could take a cart on paid lease as noted in the article and are responsible for returning the cart if they no longer need it. It is only local walkers that are doing this because these carts certainly don't fit on a bus.

DougHuntingdon wrote:Some recommended options include raising the mandatory fine, instituting a system where customers pay to use the carts, receiving a refund upon return, or having residents purchase their own carts, eliminating the excess cart flow throughout the community.

This is an excellent example of the moron factor at work. Every moron added to a city's population increases the aggravation factor by:

Total number of morons squared times the total non-moron population divided by the possibility that the city will actually do anything constructive. On a scale of one to ten that possibility is 1.

Some moron steals a shopping cart and the proposed solutions are:

Let's form a committee. We must fund a study! Some of the ideas so far:

The Store pays a big fine for the privilege of having one of its carts stolen.

Innocent customers must pay to use shopping carts.

Innocent store owners face the wrath of shoppers forced to pay for using a cart.

Innocent store owners face the added expense of collecting the money and tracking the return of carts.

Or making everyone in the City buy their own shopping carts!!

It's like if a police officer sees a bank being robbed so he starts arresting the innocent bystanders. When asked why he says, "It's easier, they weren't running away".

How about a $500 fine for anyone caught stealing a shopping cart?

How about a $500 fine for any apartment owner who allows stolen shopping carts in the building?

How about punishing the moron? If you hit a moron in the head hard enough and long enough they finally get the idea.

Bill

Beautiful baby.

Shopping Carts make the city look bad, but brown electrified Twin Sub-Zero refrigerators on every other corner add to the beautification!!!!!!

Fine the residents, but let AT&T get off easy, simply because it costs more.


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I know of several stores on the west coast that use a shopping cart locking system that makes the wheels lock up once you get past the parking lot. I thought that idea was great. Sure it costs the store but they also aren't having to replace stolen carts or pay to have them retrieved. As an added bonus cities are cart free.

Dave's supermarket tried that on or near Fulton or Clark. I forget how much they spent on it.

Then, the unscrupulous customers just dragged them away instead of pushign them.

Maybe Aldi's has the best system, although I think they are going to need to up the $.25 to $1.00, if they haven't already.

Doug
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not discussing anything government-related, etc. as I know when I am outnumbered

Dave's supermarket tried that on or near Fulton or Clark. I forget how much they spent on it.

Then, the unscrupulous customers just dragged them away instead of pushing them.

I guess that shouldn't surprise me. When people are going to be jerks, to put it mildly, they need some hefty fines.

I wouldn't mind paying more than a quarter at Aldi's, especially since you get it back. I appreciate that when I go there I know I won't be dodging carts.

The grocery stores should SELL the unfoldable upright carts. They are easier to tug up stairs, onto bus, or fit into apartment building elevator also.

Grocery carts are not very well for this. The small hard wheels are the bad. Larger rubber wheels are the good.