A growing number of cities that have struggled for years to keep shopping carts out of neighborhoods are forcing retailers to solve the problem.
Cities that have spent thousands of dollars a month to impound carts -- some charging stores as much as $15 per cart to get them back -- say old methods aren't working. As stray carts pile up, so are city ordinances across Southern California requiring stores to install security systems or collect the carts themselves.
"We don't care how they keep their carts on the property," said Niki Tennant, chief of staff for Long Beach council member Bonnie Lowenthal, whose city will consider an ordinance Tuesday. "They can use poles. They can use an electronic system. They can keep the owner's grandson on a lawn chair in the parking lot. We just want them to keep the carts on their property."
And an awful lot of them are straying. Hernandez Cart Service, which serves about 300 stores and 10 cities in Los Angeles and Orange counties, collects nearly 1.8 million carts a year, worth about $270 million new, said firm owner Rick Hernandez.
"Business was quiet, and then in the mid-'90s it started developing into quite a problem," Hernandez said. "Now, it's just out of hand."
Todd Hultquist, a spokesman for the Food Marketing Institute, a Washington, D.C.-based organization representing 1,500 grocers nationwide, said similar cart ordinances were being passed across the nation.
Glendale, in 1988, was one of the pioneers in California of charging retailers to get their carts back. Last May, the city became one of the first in the state to enact a stricter "cart containment" law that requires stores to ensure carts remain on their property.
Since then, the two Jons Marketplaces in the city have banned customers from taking carts into the parking lot. Instead, baggers are available to carry out groceries in bigger, takeout carts.
The two Albertsons stores in Glendale installed a security system that causes carts to spin in circles when taken out of the parking lot. Other retailers have installed systems that lock a cart's wheels when pushed out of the lot.
Santa Ana is exploring an ordinance similar to that of Glendale and Long Beach. The ordinance "may be our last shot" at fixing the problem, said Bruce Dunams, Santa Ana's community preservation manager.
Buena Park and Anaheim have taken another tack, leaving it to retailers to collect their carts and fining them as much as $1,000 when they don't.
