Ernest Jimenez Jr. pulls alongside an abandoned shopping cart nestled against a palm tree a few feet from a "No Dumping" sign in a quiet neighborhood.
"I got one here; it's from Ralphs," he says, hopping out of his pickup truck to lift the metal basket onto the bed, where it joins a red plastic trolley from Office Depot. "They use the ones with green handles."
Jimenez knows his shopping carts. And he should. As a code enforcement officer for the city of Glendale, the six-year veteran is charged in part with keeping this densely populated city free of unsightly trolleys. He's a trailblazer of sorts, with cities around the state increasingly taking note of his efforts as they attempt to curb "an epidemic" of loose carts cluttering streets.
Moments later, Jimenez spies two more offenders on a jacaranda-lined boulevard across from a schoolyard where children dance in the morning sun.
"This cart someone has taken in and modified," he says, pointing to one with a high handle and low basket, "you'd be surprised at how much carts can get cut."
Most of Jimenez's prey today are imports, like the second cart at this stop, which hails from a Trader Joe's in Burbank. Thieves are forced to look outside Glendale for shopping carts because of a law that requires stores here to keep them on their property.
Cities where these carts come from, as well as others in California, are looking to Glendale for help with the ubiquitous problem. In the last year alone, a cart retrieval service used by 2,800 Southern California grocers and retailers picked up 8 million wayward trolleys. But many more stores don't search for lost carts, leaving municipalities and residents to cope with the blight and health and safety hazards they foster.
In Palmdale, three claims for damages were filed against the city this year by people who veered off the road to avoid slamming into a cart. In downtown Los Angeles, where workers picked up 875 carts on skid row in the first four months of this year, business owners worry about health issues presented by baskets filled with soiled clothes, layers of trash and even bottles of urine.
In Mira Mesa, fed up residents formed "San Diegans Against Abandoned Shopping Carts" and are demanding that officials take action.
"Some stores are trying their best to get these carts back, but people are taking them as fast as they can get them back," said Terry Forshey, a Mira Mesa resident who heads up the group, adding that he recently counted 71 carts scattered around his 1 1/2 -square-mile neighborhood.
