City looks at stolen shopping carts

Stores in Shelton lose more than 300 shopping carts a year, which end up in alleys, ravines and homeless encampments. It costs the City of Shelton staff time and money to retrieve them from its parks and when they become a nuisance.

At a study session on June 11, the members of the Shelton City Council and city staff spent an hour discussing ways to mitigate the problem.

Jae Hill, the city's community and economic development director, said he reached out to stores in Shelton about their experiences with thieves walking away with their shopping carts. He also examined how other cities deal with it.

Hill said the shopping carts cost retailers between $300 and $1,000. Once off the store's property, they are considered stolen property, he said. They become a nuisance to the city when they and their contents are discarded in the city, and so far this year the city's code enforcement officer has retrieved 40 carts, he said.

Some cities require RCW-suggested signage on the acts that can make their theft a misdemeanor. Some cities require the stores to have carts with locking/disabling systems, such as electronically activated self-braking wheels when they hit the store's parking lot perimeter. Other stores have poles mounted to shopping carts, which prevent them from being taken outside the store, he said. Some cities have shopping cart recovery plans, or fees for monitoring and cart collection.

"I don't think any city has nailed it, or stopped it completely," Hill said.

The many challenges include cart thieves are often not able to pay fines and are difficult to book, detain or jail for low-level crimes, Hill said. Stores often don't have the signs affixed, and it could be unfair to fine a store for having their property stolen because they didn't follow a city law on carts, he said.

The Shelton Safeway told the city it is spending $40,000 on a locking system later this year, Hill said. The Shelton Fred Meyer has no locking wheels system and loses 75 to 100 carts a year, he said.

The city could require stores to install disabling devices on all carts, or post employees to deter and stop customers who attempt to remove them from the business premises, or install bollards and chains around the premises entrances and exits to prevent removal, Hill said.

The city could fine or charge fees to retrieve carts of the business does not comply to a new law, Hill said. Perhaps smaller stores, maybe under 5,000 square feet, would not face the same law, he said.

The council members and city staff then discussed the proposals.

"I absolutely don't think that we should charge a business if someone is stealing from them," said Mayor Eric Onisko. "I think that's wrong. I also don't think it's productive to charge someone a fine if they're not going to pay it or can't pay it as well. I would be interested in requiring by January 1 the stores to put in locking mechanisms on all the carts."

He added, "What's the goal? To keep the carts off the street, right? ... If they're not off the property, the problem is solved."

As for businesses, "I think they'll comply," Onisko said "I think if we say, 'This is a big problem in our city. This is how we're going to solve the problem. Put locking wheels on your carts.' "

"Set it up like this: either you get locking wheels, hire a retrieving company or you pay the fines," said council member George Blush. "Give them options, no matter how you deal with it."