Shopping cart laws move forward

The Shelton City Council on Tuesday evening gave preliminary approval to shopping cart ordinances designed to help prevent their theft and abandonment on streets, in the woods and in ravines.

The council can make the new laws official with a vote at its Sept. 17 meeting. The laws would go in effect Jan. 1. An estimated 300 shopping carts are stolen from Shelton stores each year.

No one spoke Tuesday at the public hearing on the proposal.

The proposed requirements would not apply to any business that has 15 or fewer shopping carts or contain less than 3,000 square feet of retail space.

The proposed ordinance would require the bigger stores to have "security measures" to prevent the removal of shopping carts from the store's property. They can include electronically activated self-braking wheels, poles mounted to the shopping carts that prevent them from being taken outside, bollards, chains, the use of a cart patrol and retrieval company, dedicated security personnel and other measures.

Under the proposal, the shopping carts must have identification signs. The city would use the signs to notify the owner of a lost, stolen or abandoned shopping cart. The store owner would reimburse the city for the pickup and return of the carts.

The proposed ordinance also calls for charging anyone removing a cart from a store's property with shopping cart theft, a misdemeanor. Anyone who knowingly possesses a shopping cart without the written permission of the owner could be charged with possession of stolen property in the third degree, a gross misdemeanor.

The owners of a lost, stolen or abandoned shopping cart that is "relocated or otherwise disposed" by the city would be liable for a flat fee of $100 per cart. The fees would have to be paid within 60 days and could be referred to a collection agency after that.

At Tuesday's meeting, the council also added an amendment to the proposed regulations that would fine stores $200 for not complying with the security requirements.

The members of the Shelton City Council and city staff devoted two work sessions, on June 11 and Aug. 13 to the proposals.