Opinion is divided on shopping cart rules

Carts are still abandoned in Town 'N Country, yet there is disagreement about whether that qualifies as a problem.

By JACKIE RIPLEY, Times Staff Writer
© St. Petersburg Times
published January 17, 2003

TOWN 'N COUNTRY -- A year into its effort to rid the streets of runaway shopping carts, Town 'N Country lacks consensus as to whether a problem even exists.

Rob Gamester, the community leader who pushed for a county shopping cart ordinance, says the law does not go far enough: Stores must collect the stray carts, but are not required to lock them onto store property.

Store executives, meanwhile, say there is little need for such measures.

"We send someone out to retrieve them every couple of days, and they have not lost a single cart," said Kash n' Karry spokeswoman Caren Epstein.

But on any given day abandoned buggies can be seen around Town 'N Country, such as on a vacant lot on Hanley Road about a mile from the grocery and discount stores at Waters Avenue and Hanley Road. Bent, abandoned and upended, the carts are a blight on the landscape.

Some in Town 'N Country have seen a great improvement since the ordinance was passed.

"It's gotten better, much better," said Isabelle Vega who lives in northwest Town 'N Country and shops at Kash n' Karry. "I have not seen any carts lately."

Adrienna Nottage, who lives in Carrollwood but works in Town 'N Country, agreed that "it's gotten much better than before."

The 14-month-old ordinance requires businesses to put their name, address and telephone number on carts and to post notices inside the stores, stating it is against the law to remove carts from parking lots. The ordinance also requires merchants to round up carts and return them to their store.

Stores, for the most part, have complied with the ordinance, said assistant county attorney Adam Gromly. But abandoned carts continue to be a problem because "if people are going to take carts from stores, they will take them," he said.

That's why Gamester wanted stores to come up with a plan to keep carts on their property instead of simply figuring out how to get them back.

"The Dollar store did it with PVC pipes," Gamester said.

Kash n' Karry, too, has taken preemptive measures at three of its stores in Hillsborough and one in Pinellas, by installing an electronic retention system on the buggies. A sensor is placed on one of the wheels of the cart so that if someone attempts to push it off the parking lot, the wheels lock up.

Stores with the technology in Tampa are at Fowler Avenue, Swann Avenue and Martin Luther King, Jr. Boulevard.

"From our perspective it has been hugely successful," Epstein said, although the pilot program has not been extended to Town 'N Country. "We haven't lost a cart since we implemented it."

-- Jackie Ripley can be reached at (813) 269-5308 or ripley@sptimes.com.

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