The cart comes before the blight.

Stray shopping carts on streets and sidewalks across Orange County not only are a hazard, they are a harbinger of urban decay, officials say. Their rapidly increasing numbers are a sign, like graffiti, of neighborhood deterioration. And for merchants, retrieving them is a growing expense.

"An abandoned shopping cart is saying that the people in that community don't care," Orange Police Chief John R. Robertson said. "It contributes to blight, which contributes to the amount of crime in an area."

Though the public typically blames the homeless for the clutter, the carts also are used by working-class people who don't have transportation to carry groceries and other purchases home, officials say.

Recognizing a growing problem, some cities have enacted or are considering ordinances that would force merchants to pay the city for picking up the stray carts. Last year, Placentia began charging merchants a $25 fee for each impounded cart. Stores that already have cart retrieval programs are exempt.

Costa Mesa threatened earlier this year to bill merchants a whopping $250 for each abandoned cart but backed off at the behest of the California Grocers Assn.

The powerful trade group, which represents 8,000 supermarkets, grocery and convenience stores, persuaded Costa Mesa and other cities to delay action and promised to become more aggressive in solving the problem. The association has steadily expanded its efforts to collect the carts, said Don Beaver, the group's president. It now spends $7 million a month in the Los Angeles basin alone to retrieve 700,000 carts, he said.

The group has also experimented, though unsuccessfully so far, with various tactics to prevent carts from being removed from a merchant's property. Electronic tracking devices on carts proved to be too expensive, and erecting barricades to keep the carts in the parking lot simply didn't work.

With cities still clamoring for relief and threatening fines, the grocers organization is now promoting state legislation that would restrict how cities regulate the problem. Among other provisions, the bill would cap at $5 the amount that cities could charge merchants for each abandoned cart.

"Cities are all budget-strapped and are looking for a way to generate bucks," Beaver said. "That's the reason we had to push this legislation."