Brentwood to Address Flaws Shopping Carts Ordinance

On Tuesday, the Brentwood city Council agreed to direct staff take another look at its shopping cart ordinance after a local business pointed out a flaw in their ordinance.

The ordinance was approved in April in a 5-0 vote which aimed to create a policy around lost, stolen or abandoned shopping carts and the maintenance of commercial property in order to provide greater clarity about property owners’ responsibilities and provide better enforcement tools for City staff.

However, with it being recently enacted, in “real life”, it turns out as pointed out by the owners of Grocery Outlet that the ordinance punishes the business who are the victims of lost and stolen shopping carts with fines if they don’t pick up their carts “quick enough” within 3-days, and nothing happens to the people taking the carts. The ordinance also forced businesses to a permanently affixed sign identifying the business and location on each shopping cart.

Greg Pitts, owner of Grocery Outlet, pointed out an example for the public who do not have shopping carts, that this was the equivalent of someone going to ones home, having their car stolen and driven around town and left in a field somewhere. Someone tells you they found the vehicle and if you don’t come get it within a period of time you get find–he said the victims are being punished.

According to the business, they are out about 25 carts in two years that’s $5000-$6000. They have also had to repair another 10 carts which transients took and left around town.

On Tuesday, the council took up the item and directed staff to look at the ordinance again and cease fining businesses for the time being.

Councilwoman Jovita Mendoza stated she was “embarrassed over this one” because she didn’t realize this would hurt the business by punishing them with fines.

“I didn’t realize that this was going to hurt small business. A cart gets stolen, then they have to get it within a certain amount of time or they get charged,” said Mendoza. “The problem is something was stolen from them and we are hurting them for someone doing something. We need to re-look at ceasing fines for these carts being abandoned.”

She said they see people with stolen carts and what the police department was doing when people have a stolen cart. She said it hurts businesses while rewarding people who stole carts.

Vice Mayor Susannah Meyer said the intent was not to hurt small business and maybe they need to look at the levels for amount of carts it applies too—franchise vs. corporate entity. She didn’t want local businesses were not punished. She wanted to look at ways to fix that.

Greg Pitts, Grocery Outlet, shared during public comments that they have complied with the law but then started receiving calls and emails from the city letting them know to pick up their shopping carts needed to be picked up. He shared over past two years he has spent countless hours picking up stolen shopping carts from their business.

“Replacement cost is almost $200 so picking these up and getting back to my store is vital,” said Pitts. “But issuing fines to someone who is essentially a victim of a crime because someone stole our property and now we find out the city is not going after the people stealing the carts but rather the people whom they are being stolen from.”

He asked the council to revisit this item because its punishing business owners, not the people committing the crime.

After public comments, Mendoza said she wanted to do away with the fines.

Mayor Joel Bryant said this was an example of a city implementing something with the best of intentions only to have unintended consequences. He agreed that they need to address this.

“I am very frustrated, I know I have to keep it on this topic, but its not Grandma Jones running out with a cart and our not our families who are shoppers, these carts are being stolen and abandoned and become a nuisance,” said Bryant. “We have to find away to not harm our local businesses, but to address it because the original conversation some of the larger retail establishments were absolutely were making no efforts to retrieve their carts.”

He didn’t want to harm local businesses, but find a way to address this situation so there is motivation to pick up shopping carts. He was in support of figuring out a solution.

Councilwoman PA’Tanisha Pierson suggested not getting rid of the fines but rather extend the timeline to 10-15 days.

Mendoza asked the question why is the city letting people steal carts and be okay with it? She wanted an ordinance that would not hurt small business while dealing with stolen property which they are turning a blind eye to.

City staff said the council was getting into the weeds and this was a future agenda item.

The council agreed to direct staff to bring back the item at a future meeting.

Documents

Publisher of ContraCosta.news and host of several Podcast Shows focusing on Contra Costa County and State of California.

Brentwood, you may want to focus on real problems. You will become Antioch before Oakley does.

it must be nice to live in a city where the biggest problems are shopping carts and dogs in the sun.

There already is a CA B&P code for stolen shopping carts (22435). The issue is—are the businesses going to be willing to press charges against the transients stealing the carts? They have to be willing to do their part too—although don’t expect them to actually get charged.

Of cour

Of course, these businesses could do what Petco has done, which is attach long poles to the carts, making it impossible to take them out of the store. However, this may cause others to react similarly to the way I did, which was to reconsider whether I want to shop there. I don’t find the prospect of hauling a 50 pound bag of pet food to my car appealing.

It’s cheaper to hire a 24 hr on site security officer. Protect customer’s, employees and shopping carts. Deterrent to the homeless taking carts. Probably have less thief! 🤷 😕

Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment.

Δ