City Councilmember Tammi Thurm announced that the city was going to try cooperation, rather than regulation, in dealing with abandoned shopping carts at the Tuesday, Nov. 1 City Council meeting.
The problem that Thurm has been attempting to solve are the shopping carts that have been taken from retail establishments and abandoned all over the city. Thurm said that the problem was particularly bad in District 5, which she represents.
Thurm said that she and Mayor Nancy Vaughan toured District 5 recently and found one area where there were 35 or 40 abandoned shopping carts.
The City Council had considered an ordinance that would fine the retail establishments for shopping carts that had been removed from their property and abandoned, but she said the city was going to try and solve the problem without penalities or fines.
Thurm said that following a conference call with the North Carolina Retailers Association, which included regional managers of “just about every big box store that is in our city,” the decision was made to put the proposed ordinance on hold for 90 days.
Thurm said that the city is going to try a program where the retail establishments will be notified of the abandoned shopping carts and given opportunity to retrieve them.
She said, “We got the cooperation of the district managers and retailers to see how this works. We’re very hopeful that this will begin to address the problem.”
Thurm also asked for the participation of the public. She said, “Anybody in the city can call the Community Relations Department at 336-373-2723 and request them to come pick them up.” She added that it would be very helpful if those reporting abandoned shopping carts would identify the retailer that the cart came from when reporting it to Community Relations Department.
Thurm said, “The regional managers recognized that this was an issue and they wanted to help solve it.”
I know it must be asking alot of city trash engineers, when you see a cart, pick it up and dispose it. Then fine the establishment if cart can be identified and they can come pick up carts if needed. Quit talking about it.
You know shopping carts are expensive. Maybe if people who are taking them were stopped and ticketed and fined or charged with theft people would stop stealing them. Because that’s what it is. STEALING.
This just makes no sense….fine the stores for theft of their own property? So if someone steals my car and abandons it am I going to have to pay a fine?
Exactly!! Just one more example of people of doing the wrong thing and getting a pass.
Sadly, if your car is stolen and is subsequently towed, you will have to pay the towing charge and any storage fees before recovering your vehicle.
Ha! Remember, this council is well known for not making a lot of sense.
If you leave your keys in it. Seriously I got fined when my car was stolen in florida bc I left the keys in it. As if my day wasn’t bad enough.
Crime increasing, murder rate going up, supporting defund the police, giving tax dollars away to friends and other council members and you worry about shopping carts??? REALLY??
Those shopping carts cost about $300.00 apiece. Why contribute to higher grocery prices?
Greensboro voted for trash & now they’re upset they have trash? Go figure…..
Why would you penalize a business for being the victim of a theft? Talk about backwards thinking government!
So city council wants to penalize business that have been robbed of their property? Maybe the city could return stolen property it discovers? What a waste of time and resources.
I remember reading a few years ago that Kroger was going to put locks on their shopping cart wheels. If the cart strayed outside of the designated perimeter, the wheels would lock, & it couldn’t be pushed any further. I’ve since seen a few Kroger carts at the entrance/exit of the parking lot, so I’ve assumed that their plan was working.
I don’t know how much a wheel-lock costs, but how much does a shopping cart cost? How much does it cost to return a cart from a location several miles away? How much would the fine be? Maybe a mandatory wheel-lock would be less expensive & solve the problem of shopping carts all over the city.
Businesses like Harris Teeter have devices on their carts that will not move or go forward once they are rolled off the boundary of their property. If all the businesses could do this, thefts could be stopped.
If the City Council members are so hot to see the stolen shopping carts returned to the rightful stores, let them rent a UHaul and deal with it. I’d love to be the manager of a grocery store or a Walmart during the holiday season, and get a call from the city saying to come and retrieve my stolen cart from some random neighborhood. Let’s just say the response would not be full of joy and good cheer!
Park a marked police car with a patrolman in it near places where the carts get abandoned, warn (and then eventually ticket) those taking them off a business’s property (it has to be theft, right?) and maybe they will stop being stolen from businesses.
Oh wait, that’s right, there is a police shortage but that is still no reason to victim blame even if the victim in this case is big business.
“Thurm said that the city is going to try a program where the retail establishments will be notified of the abandoned shopping carts and given opportunity to retrieve them.”
So, the people who take the carts with them to their homes or apartments, or leave them on a street corner, are not charged with anything? You realize that making the stores responsible will only add to their cost to have employees go pick them up, or pay someone to pick them up and bring them back to the stores.
Yet one more fool-hardy idea from our “council” to do nothing to charge those who “borrowed” the carts. And you realize some people are just stealing the carts from the store parking lots. Maybe if the stores installed a charge $1.00 fee to get a cart, then you get it back when you return the cart. Works at Aaldi’s.
Zeros fiddle while Rome burns!
None of those carts were from Aldi, guaranteed.
My thoughts, exactly.
Hope all that voted for Thrum & Vaughn are happy with these two. Tony Wilkins would have been a better choice. Just three + more years to have to put up with these fools.
The Underground Railroad runs this town. Clear and simple
If you are looking to the govt for a solution, or even a fix, (fill in your own).