Committee recommends approval of shopping cart ordinance
Statement of Alderwoman Chantia Lewis - November 20, 2017
Today, the Public Safety and Health Committee voted to recommend adoption of legislation that would create an ordinance to fine owners and residents who remove, or allow for the removal of shopping carts from businesses. I authored this legislation after a Common Council study found that abandoned shopping carts create blight in neighborhoods, reduce property values, and obstruct pedestrian and vehicular traffic — creating a health, safety, and general welfare issue for the city.
It is a waste of valuable time and city resources to retrieve the carts and assess fines for businesses. If the ordinance is approved we will be requiring businesses to install technology worth $28 to secure $150 of investments in shopping carts. We hope this will address the high number of carts that end up in our neighborhoods and near major intersections.
The legislation now moves to the full Common Council for review on November 28 and I urge my colleagues to vote for its adoption.
NOTE: This press release was submitted to Urban Milwaukee and was not written by an Urban Milwaukee writer. It has not been verified for its accuracy or completeness.
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Nice idea in theory. But people just walk out the door with carts and keep walking. How are stores supposed to keep track of shopping carts that might be a mile away? Install GPS devices? So now you might be expecting a bagger or clerk to be wandering a neighborhood after closing hours to look for abandoned shopping carts at night in potentially bad places? I’ll take the fine. I would never even allow my employees past the parking lot.
Doesn’t it take a village? That’s what they say.
I guess the only practical answer is that from now on carts are not to leave the building unless a team member is pushing it. Customers will have to either drive up for their stuff or carry it themselves. A TM can push the cart to the car and unload it if you have enough TMs.That’s the world we have become.
@mbradleyc – I took notes on the proposal today at the Public Safety and Health Committee. It relies on the use of carts that use a barrier system that prevents them from fleeing the premises. The ones in Milwaukee I’ve encountered rely on an invisible fence like system and magnets.
Aldi’s has a great idea in their 25 cent @ “rental” of their carts…the carts are Chained up, and unlocked by the infusion of a quarter, which is returned to the renter upon return of the cart to the “cart station”…As a result, the temporary loan of a quarter to the Aldi cart station keeps the carts where they belong when they are not in use.