Homestead Council Passed Ordinance on Stray Shopping Carts

The Homestead City Council is hoping a newly passed ordinance will begin to solve the city’s persistent problem with stray shopping carts.
City officials say that many residents leave store properties with shopping carts to transport groceries home, later abandoning them in open lots, swales, or sidewalks. Store management, they say, often makes no effort to retrieve the carts.

Mayor Steven Losner said the new ordinance, passed on first reading, would require stores to implement safeguards to prevent carts from being removed from store property.
Options include equipping carts with sensors that lock the wheels if they leave the lot, requiring store personnel to escort customers to their vehicles and retrieve the carts, or designing carts in a way that makes them non-removable from the premises. Stores would also be required to place clear identification on carts so the City can trace where they came from.

Losner shared a personal example of the issue: he once found an abandoned shopping cart in the parking lot of his office with a store’s name on it. When he called the store to report it, the manager said the store had no interest in retrieving the cart.
“Some store managers just don’t care if the carts, which can be expensive, disappear,” Losner said.

Councilmember Larry Roth echoed the need to act, emphasizing that addressing the stray shopping cart issue must be a city priority.

The problem of stray shopping carts has come to the attention of the Homestead City Council.
During the June 18 meeting, the Council passed on first reading an ordinance titled the Shopping Cart Control Plan.

Under the proposed ordinance, store owners will be required to display ownership information on their carts.
The City has been retrieving abandoned shopping carts from public property and rights-of-way. In Fiscal Year 2024, more than 2,500 carts were removed under this process. These carts were either reclaimed by businesses or disposed of by the City if unclaimed.

The new requirements will apply to businesses that use more than 10 shopping carts. These businesses will be required to implement and maintain a system that ensures all shopping carts are retained within their property boundaries.

The initiative aims to reduce blight, improve public safety, and decrease the City's burden of cart retrieval and disposal. Efforts will be made to educate store owners and the public on the new ordinance.