Long Beach Chamber Fights to Save Long Beach Businesses $50,000+ in Mandates
 

At a Long Beach City Council committee meeting on June 28, 2005, Councilmember's Bonnie Lowenthal, Val Lerch and Rae Gabelich voted unanimously to request staff to develop a draft ordinance that will mandate that all businesses in Long Beach that provide shopping carts do the following:

1. Contract with a shopping cart retrieval company to pick up carts throughout the city seven days per year (Long Beach Chamber SUPPORTED position)

2. If businesses with shopping carts do not successfully retrieve their carts in a timely manner, they must implement some type of containment system (i.e. wheels on the shopping carts automatically lock if they leave the property, hire a guard to confront customers who attempt to steal carts.)

(Long Beach Chamber OPPOSED position - We oppose due to the undetermined financial impact of implementing ANY containment system - estimated to exceed $50,000 per business - on our business community)

The Long Beach Chamber will only support an ordinance that ONLY mandates that businesses with shopping carts contract with a cost-effective shopping cart retrieval company (#1 above).

Background

Historically, illegally moved and abandoned shopping carts in neighborhoods throughout the city have resulted in several problems. These problems have included visual blight, litter and the encouragement of various illegal activities. Additionally, abandoned shopping carts can obstruct pedestrian and automobile traffic in the public right-of-way, creating potential hazards to the health and safety of the general public.

Financially, the city’s current program to retrieve shopping carts cannot adequately address the large number of carts that are abandoned on our streets and in our neighborhoods. Current retrieval efforts funded by Long Beach have been reduced to only two days per week.

The responsibility for controlling and retrieving shopping carts lies with those who provide shopping services. While some stores have policies in place to deter the illegal removal of carts, these steps have often been ineffective in dealing with the magnitude of the problem. These efforts can only be successful if there are adequate and effective enforcement mechanisms that hold those providers responsible. To this end, several California cites including San Francisco and Atwater have implemented local ordinances aimed at controlling abandoned shopping carts.

The California Business and Professional Code allows cities the authority to enact ordinances to address stores that use shopping carts. Given the impact of abandoned and illegally removed shopping carts on the streets and neighbor-hoods of Long Beach, the city should take aggressive and comprehensive steps to address this issue.

Long Beach Chamber, working with the California Grocers Association, SUPPORTS:

An ordinance requiring all businesses operating in the City of Long Beach that provide shopping carts (as defined in the California Business and Professional Code Sections 22435) for their customers to do the following as a requirement for obtaining their annual business license:

- Submit, with their annual business license application/renewal, a copy of a certified, valid contract with a licensed cart retrieval company for 7-day retrieval service;
 

- Clearly identify all carts (per California Business and Professional Code 22435.1) with the name of the store, a telephone number or address for retrieval;
 

- Implement an effective proactive policy to return all carts to their appropriate owner.