City to consider shopping cart ordinance

A new shopping cart ordinance has been proposed to the Porterville City Council with a goal of creating a safer environment with less fire hazards, cleaner streets and sidewalks, and an overall more beautiful Porterville.

The ordinance has already had its first city council reading and is awaiting the second one. Six months after the second reading, the council will review the ordinance’s progress.

The proposed ordinance would make it so that if a person needed to be in possession of a cart off retailer premises, they would need to get written permission.

“I would accept something on a piece of paper basically stating which retailer and that they gave the name of the person a given amount of hours to use their shopping cart,” Fire Chief David Lapere said. “It has got to be signed and have contact info so I can get a hold of them to make sure it’s not forgery.”

If they do not have written permission, code enforcers would be able to take the cart and have the proper retailer pick it up.

A few months back, Porterville Fire Department responded to a fire in the river bed that was being fueled by plastic shopping carts. The burning carts released clouds of toxic smoke into the air, but fires are not the only danger posed by shopping carts taken off retailer premises. They can also be submerged underwater and get tangled in weeds.

Shopping carts that are left in streets or on sidewalks can also be a danger to drivers and pedestrians.

Thiry-eight local businesses have been notified by mail about the ordinance and no negative comments have been given.

Currently, code enforcers are allowed to pick up stray carts left in public way either in the street or on sidewalks.

“We’ve picked up 30 plus (shopping carts) within a two week period,” Lapere reported.

When the ordinance is introduced, verbal warnings for carts being pushed on the streets will be given. After the

ordinance is established, citations and court dates will be issued to violators.

If there is property in the shopping carts it will not be taken. Only the cart itself will be

repossessed.

“We are not in the shopping cart retrieval business, nor do we want to be,” Lapere stated. “We want you to manage your own shopping cart retrieval. We hope that this ordinance curbs the shopping carts out of the public way and off site.”