The Southgate City Council held a first reading July 7 for a proposed shopping cart ordinance revision, designed to promote public safety, and to improve the city’s image and appearance.
By SUE SUCHYTA
Sunday Times Newspapers
SOUTHGATE – The City Council held its first reading for a proposed shopping cart ordinance change on July 7, to allow for stronger enforcement of situations which cause traffic hazards and blight.
City Administrator Dustin Lent said shopping carts are being abandoned at numerous locations in the city, but especially along Dix-Toledo and Eureka roads at bus stops.
“At that bus station there, there are always about three or four shopping carts that are being left,” he said. “This creates a traffic problem, with the shopping carts getting blown into the road, and an eyesore for our community.”
Lent said the proposed ordinance revision would be more stringent with the business owners, by requiring them to send individuals out to collect their shopping carts.
“What we are looking at doing is increasing our fees for those shopping carts that are being left in the middle of the street, and are not being recouped, as well as giving us a little more teeth for those who are taking the shopping carts off of the property,” he said. “Shopping carts would remain on the property.”
Lent said there would be a fee levied against any store for which more than 10 shopping carts are picked up off its property by the city’s department of public works.
“Our DPW will start picking them up, but we want to have some more teeth, to be able to charge them for that service, to help beautify our city and keep it safe,” he said.
Carts can have electronically activated self-braking wheels, which would lock up at the edge of the store’s parking lot, or a pole could be mounted to the cart, which would prevent it from being taken outside of the store.
Other measures could involve the utilization of store personnel or an outside contractor to retrieve and return store carts in a timely and effective manner.
The ordinance would also require carts to be identified with the store name, for identification purposes.
Businesses would also be required to post signs informing customers that shopping carts should not be removed from the business parking lot.
A $25 fine would be imposed for each shopping cart which the city picks up and impounds, and an additional $200 fine would be imposed upon a business with 12 or more impounded shopping carts. The city would, in turn, provide a business with notice of the city’s possession of the shopping carts.