The California Senate and now a key Assembly committee have passed a bill that would allow cities to charge businesses up to $650 for returning shopping carts stolen from them.
The measure, Senate Bill 753, was introduced at the urging of the city of San Jose, which faces major homelessness and budget crises.
“[San Jose] Mayor Mahan has a homelessness problem and a budget problem, and his solution to solve both of those is to charge retailers more to get their stolen property back,” said Daniel Conway of the California Grocers Association at the California Assembly Local Government Committee hearing that advanced the bill. “Our property is being stolen and taken offsite.”
Under current law, cities can only charge businesses $50 for each shopping cart found and retrieved by the city off of the businesses’ property after the first three violations within a six-month period, or for failing to pick up retrieved carts within three business days.
Shopping carts also currently have to be held for 30 days before the city disposes of them, which bill author state Sen. Dave Cortese, D-San Jose, said creates a nuisance for cities. Cortese’s bill would authorize cities to return the carts to businesses, and charge the businesses up to $500 for the service of returning each cart and up to an additional $150 in fines.
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Author: Marty Kaufmann
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