Image: M. Vanden Bosch / PML / Chilliwack City Council adopted language Tuesday (Nov. 15) that would allow the City to initiate bylaw enforcement action against supermarkets that allow their shopping carts to be taken from parking lots, citing concerns from the Public Safety Advisory Committee that the carts are often dumped, abandoned, and end up in parks, roadsides, and on private property.

By Mike Vanden Bosch

Abandoned shopping carts

Retrieval and removal of abandoned shopping carts costing the City of Chilliwack over $2,200 per month; City to initiate bylaw enforcement against lax supermarkets

Nov 15, 2022 | 5:04 PM

CHILLIWACK — The days of countless shopping carts being dumped by homeless people, or utilized as luggage trays by those experiencing homelessness across Chilliwack, may be numbered.

Acting on concerns from its Public Safety Advisory Committee about shopping carts and the derelict effect of them being removed from supermarket parking lots, Chilliwack City Council adopted language Tuesday (Nov. 15) that would allow the city to initiate bylaw enforcement against local supermarkets who don’t retrieve their shopping carts beyond business premises.

According to a city staff report jointly prepared by Caitlin Weston, manager of bylaw enforcement, and Erin Leary, manager of development planning, the abandonment of shopping carts is an ongoing concern to the City, RCMP, and SD33, and often results in bylaw complaints that bylaw staff must resolve.

When shopping carts are taken from parking lots, Weston and Leary wrote, they create an unsightly appearance and often have garbage and debris placed inside. The presence of shopping carts dumped or abandoned can create the impression that an area is neglected, potentially inviting and encouraging more serious nuisance and illegal activities, the staff report indicated.

In some cases, jettisoned shopping carts can impede or block vehiclular or pedestrian access, including blocking driveways, parking stalls, and sidewalks. When this happens, it becomes the responsibility of the City to clean up garbage and debris, and remove and dispose of the cart itself at a cost to the municipality.

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When the business owner of a shopping cart cannot be identified, the carts are brought to the city operations yard and subsequently sent to a scrap metal facility. Operations staff currently estimate the cost of retrieving a shopping cart at $50 per cart.

Between operations and bylaw staff, the City is currently collecting anywhere from 45 to 55 shopping carts a month at a cost of approximately $2,250 to $2,750 per month.

Councillor Harv Westeringh clarified during Tuesday’s meeting that the City was not necessarily looking to fine businesses right off the bat.

“I just want to reiterate that we’re doing this because we were getting no response from businesses, which is kind of the main thing here,” said Westeringh, who was first elected to council in 2018. “We’ve been working on this for some time, [COVID-19] hit, [we] kind of had a delay. Sent letters to all businesses with 20 or more shopping carts and no response. The intent of this is not to issue fines, but it’s to get businesses to comply. So, I just wanted to make that clear.”

Councillor Chris Kloot, who was first elected in 2014, said it seemed unusual that no supermarkets who utilized 20 or more shopping carts responded.

“This has been in the works for a while now, and I appreciate all the time and effort that’s gone into this from the various committees,” Kloot said. “How many times have we reached out to them? Was it just the formal letter or were there more opportunities? It just seems really unfortunate that no one bothered to give us feedback.”

Weston told Kloot that in addition to correspondence that bylaw sent to various supermarkets, the RCMP conducted in-person visits with grocery stores and still, no response was received.

Kloot said in light of how much the City was spending to retrieve carts, he would support the new bylaw language.

City staff noted in their report that while the goal is to gain voluntary compliance from retailers to retrieve their shopping carts, the corresponding amendments to the Bylaw Notice Enforcement Bylaw and Municipal Ticket Information Bylaw do allow the City to fine businesses if they don’t comply.

Further, businesses with 20 or more shopping carts will be required to affix the name of their store to all their shopping carts and to retrieve shopping carts belonging to the business if the carts are removed from their premises and abandoned.

Mayor Ken Popove asked city staff to report back after six months to assess how well the new bylaw enforcement was going.

by Mike Vanden Bosch

Retrieval and removal of abandoned shopping carts costing the City of Chilliwack over $2,200 per month; City to initiate bylaw enforcement against lax supermarkets

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