Lost carts to find their way home with new TD law
This Safeway cart found its way to the Union Street underpass in The Dalles. The Busch box was empty. AWWWW SNAP! The Dalles City Council approved a new ordinance that is designed to get abandoned carts such as this off of private property and public rights of way within three days.
By Tom Peterson
The Dalles, Ore., Oct. 25, 2023 - In a split vote, The Dalles City Council approved a new ordinance that will require businesses utilizing shopping carts to retrieve them within 72 hours of them being reported abandoned.
The decision came after more than an hour of discussion at the Council’s Monday night meeting, Oct. 23. Councilors have been working through multiple ordinances during the past few months to reduce public nuisances while improving quality of life for citizens after receiving multiple complaints.
Shopping carts fell into the category.
The decision came after Councilor Tim McGlothlin made comments asking why people who have obviously stolen carts from businesses are allowed to do so.
“It is a crime to steal a shopping cart,” he said. “Yet, individuals roll down the street without consequence.”
“Are you suggesting that somebody who steals a shopping cart be arrested,” Mayor Rich Mays asked.
“The Wasco County District Attorney has informed me that he will not be prosecuting anyone who is experiencing unsheltered homelessness for theft with respect to that theft for being involved with a shopping cart where they possess all of their worldly belongings,” City Attorney Jonathan Kara told the council.
This family of carts were found under an I-84 bridge next to the train tracks on West First Street.
The new ordinance gives store owners such as grocers and small retailers three days to retrieve an abandoned shopping cart.
The ordinance does allow some leeway for those experiencing houselessness as carts containing sanitary and personal belongings are not to be retrieved.
The ordinance also has a fine of up to $50 for store owners who do not comply in a timely manner.
City Manager Mathew Klebes said staff had contacted the cities of Milwaukie, Newport, and Coos Bay that use the same state ordinance to deal with the problem of abandoned carts. He said the the municipalities reported it was a useful tool that rarely if ever required fines and it had reduced abandoned carts effectively.
This little guy found his way outside an abandoned house on the corner of West Fourth and Third streets in TD.
The law will become effective on Jan 21st.
It requires stores to post signs on their property and on carts that it is a crime to take a shopping cart without permission. Shopping carts must also contain the business’s name. Businesses must also provide a 1-800 number for the public for reporting an abandoned shopping cart.
It was mentioned several times during this meeting and one held in June, that the ordinance seemed like a punishment to the businesses who were already experiencing a loss in property.
Fred Meyer is already getting after it, putting locking wheels on carts that engage if taken off the premises.
However, it was also pointed out that Fred Meyer was already being proactive, adding locking wheels to their carts in The Dalles, and greatly reducing the number of carts that have gone missing.
Business owners, no doubt, bear expense at the loss of carts, having to retrieve and clean them before returning them to stores. Some are damaged so much, they are no longer useful. Those costs, long term, are passed along to all consumers.
A shopping cart can cost north of $200. Some carts, it has been reported, have been turned on their sides and used for grilling with small fires.
Aldi shopping cart with 25-cent locking mechanism. Put a quarter in and get a quarter back - as long as you return the cart.
CCCNews went looking for solutions in regard to shopping cart abandonements, and found that the grocery store Aldi, with more than 2,000 stores in the US, uses a chain an locking system. Shoppers must push a quarter into the shopping cart mechanism to unlock it. And similarly when they lock the cart at the end of their shopping, they get the quarter back.
“It motivates you to return your cart where it belongs, and that cuts down on the staff needed in the store. Many supermarkets employ people whose primary job is to retrieve shopping carts left in the parking lot,” according to a story in https://www.aisleofshame.com/aldi-shopping-cart/
In The Dalles on Monday, Councilors Dan Richardson, Darcy Long and Scott Randall voted in favor of the shopping cart ordinance and Councilors McGlothlin and Rod Runyon voted against.
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