‘Not the right solution.’ Lexington plan to reduce abandoned shopping carts killed
A proposed ordinance that would have required Fayette County businesses with shopping carts to retrieve those abandoned carts within 24 hours or face fines was killed Tuesday after too many questions were raised about how the local law would be enforced.
Lack of input from businesses also derailed the proposal.
The ordinance would have fined retailers for failing to retrieve orphaned or abandoned shopping carts — $100 for 1 to 3 violations per year, $200 for 4 to 6 violations per year and $300 for 7 to 9 violations per year. Business owners with more than 10 shopping carts would have been able to submit an optional retrieval plan that labeled each cart with the company’s name and phone number.
Members of the council’s Environmental Quality and Public Works Committee voted 7 to 2 Tuesday not to move the ordinance forward.
Lexington started seeing an uptick in orphaned or abandoned shopping carts over the winter.
In one example, the city found more than 80 shopping carts in an area off of Buena Vista Drive. City officials have said those carts can create hazards for drivers and end up in the city’s creeks and waterways, causing flooding and other drainage issues.
“The problem was that we (the city) were responsible for retrieving those,” said Councilman David Kloiber, who has pushed the ordinance. Taxpayers were footing the bill to find and dispose of those carts, he said.
The Environmental Quality and Public Works Committee first discussed the issue in June but ultimately opted to get more data to determine how widespread the problem is. Some council members also expressed reservations in June about putting the burden on businesses to retrieve the carts when shoppers or others took them off the property.
Kloiber told the committee Tuesday the city has since tracked the number of calls through its general phone number — LexCall or 311 — and has received 79 complaints since June.
“They are across the city,” Kloiber said.
Kloiber said he also talked to business owners about the proposed ordinance.
“The biggest thing that they brought up is that they wanted flexibility,” Kloiber said.
Kloiber said the citations would not be liens against the business.
“We are trying to make this as flexible as we can,” Kloiber said. “We are trying to make this a partnership as much as we can.”
Kloiber said when the city now finds carts, workers throw them away. The proposed ordinance allows businesses the opportunity to retrieve the carts. If the business does not pick up the shopping cart, the city can return it if the cart has a sign on it.
Councilwoman Amanda Bledsoe said the ordinance would punish the wrong entity — the company, not the customer who takes the shopping cart.
Bledsoe said 24 hours is not enough time for a company to retrieve a shopping cart.
“I want to help solve the problem,” Bledsoe said. “This is not the right solution.”
Bledsoe said she has spoken to representatives from Kroger and other members of the retail community and they were not aware of the proposed ordinance.
Councilman Richard Moloney said he would like to hear more from business owners about what they think can be done.
“I would like to see the business community give their input,” Moloney said.
Councilman Preston Worley said he’s not ready to punish the business owners “who have been stolen from.”
Kloiber said companies’ private property ends up in city waterways and creeks, and taxpayers pay to clean that up.
“This is sharing responsibility as opposed to us bearing all of it,” Kloiber argued.
Not everyone was opposed to the ordinance.
Councilwoman Jennifer Reynolds said there was no perfect solution to the abandoned shopping cart problem but the ordinance was a start. If there were problems, the city could make tweaks to the ordinance later, she said.
Because the ordinance died in committee, it can’t be brought back.
This story was originally published August 24, 2021 at 3:41 PM.
