BY ALEX CANTATORE

The days of broken down shopping carts littering the streets of Turlock may soon be in the city’s past, as a new Turlock Municipal Code ordinance has made it a crime to remove a cart from the premises or parking area of a business establishment. The law took effect earlier this year, but the Turlock Police Department Neighborhood Services is just starting to hand out the first citations to offenders.

“We’re trying to get information out so people know this is the law now,” said Robert Boyd, Neighborhood Services Supervisor with the Turlock Police. “We’re trying to use as much discretion as we can, but people we see with carts two or three times, we’re going to give tickets to.”

For a first offense, in these early days of the ordinance, the Turlock Police might contact someone with a shopping cart, explain the new law, and then take the cart away and give the offender a plastic bag to help carry their goods home. Those found to be in possession of a shopping cart could be cited and find themselves facing a hefty fine, however.

The goal of the new ordinance isn’t to raise money or cause trouble for Turlockers, but merely to cut down on the number of shopping carts that go missing from local stores. Each abandoned cart, worth $200 to $500, represents a significant loss to a store-and a significant blight upon the landscape of Turlock.

According to Boyd, the biggest offenders are those that live close to supermarkets and make use of carts to bring groceries home. The Turlock Police Department suggests making use of personal carts instead of illegally borrowing shopping carts from local businesses. The local homeless community has begun to make the transition already, at the advisement of the Turlock Police Department.

“If you look at the homeless, I don’t think you’re going to see any with shopping carts,” Boyd said. “We’ve put a lot of education into that community about the new law.”

Anyone seen about town with a shopping cart will be, “stopped continually,” according to Boyd, making the crime not worth the hassle. Additionally, abandoned shopping carts will be picked up by a shopping cart retrieval program, required of all retailers in Turlock as part of the new ordinance.

Boyd hopes that retrieval programs will become a rare necessity as knowledge of Turlock’s shopping cart law becomes more widespread. Voluntary compliance with the new law will help make Turlock a better place, he says, just as citizens’ cooperation with garage sale permits have improved the city.

“We’re not here to write tickets,” Boyd said.

For more information about the new shopping cart ordinance, visit the Neighborhood Services Web site at http://turlock.ca.us/citydepartments/policedepartment/specialoperations/neighborhoodservices/shoppingcartordinance.asp

To contact Alex Cantatore, e-mail acantatore@turlockjournal.com or call 634-9141 ext. 2005.

Originally published in the Turlock Journal 2/17/2009.
Retrieved from the Turlock Journal Web site.