CUAD sees success in passing of updated shopping cart ordinance
Resurrecting the Stockton Municipal Shopping Cart Ordinance began by addressing the issue directly with five of our city’s big box stores who’s shopping carts were blighting our city. Letters sent were only responded to by two stores. One of those stores contacted CUAD and assured us that they would be doing a better job of controlling their carts. To date, this has not happened. Another big box store shared that it was a local manager’s issue. When those manager’s were reached out to, they did not respond.
This prompted CUAD to initially address the issue at a West March Lane business watch meeting. Because the old ordinance was not mandatory in nature, a requirement to change the ordinance language from “may” to “shall” was addressed with the city’s legislative committee. Councilmember Blower requested that a group be formed to study the issue.
This led CUAD to the City Manager. Manager Black agreed to meet with representatives from CUAD where we explained the need for a resurrection of the ordinance (the city admitted to not enforcing it since bankruptcy) and a change in the language. The issue was given to the Assistant City Manager and then the Police Dept for consideration. CUAD provided examples of shopping cart ordinances from other cities in the Bay area and Sacramento to consider as templates for an updated policy.
The SPD hired a former city employee out of retirement to modify and update the ordinance. Manager Black put the updated ordinance on the City Council’s agenda on April 2, 2024 and the council passed it in a unanimous vote. Councilman Blower and Wright were both lauditory of CUAD’s efforts with Councilman Wright stating that the issue had been up for consideration year after year dating back to as far as 2015 with no success.
CUAD consists of business owners. We are PRO BUSINESS. We understand that those who steal carts should be held to account. As CUAD works on the issue of more police officers for the city we may be able to make a demand on the SPD to hold those who steal them to account in the future. But as for now, we simply ask that business owners increase their efforts to maintain their inventory of carts by retrieving them in a timely manner from their lots and returning them to the store for their customers.
CUAD had taken hundreds of pictures representing thousands of abandoned carts. With extremely rare exception, a COSTCO cart is never seen on the street. In large part, it is the perception of this group that COSTCO goes to great lengths to retrieve their carts regularly and in a timely fashion. We believe a stepped up effort by stores to do the same will immediately alleviate much of the theft.
As well, members of CUAD, as well as council members and city employees, have spoken with store managers whos carts are regularly found on the street. Repeatedly, these managers have stated that stolen carts are the price of doing business and those that are lost are simply replaced with new. The carts that are found on the street currently are picked up by the city of Stockton and sent to the landfill resulting in a gross waste of resources. With the new ordinance, a store will be required to contract with a cart retrieval service. A disposed of cart can be upwards of a couple hundred dollars. The cost to retrieve a cart and return it to the store is approximately 3 dollars.