Here's to the City of Burbank!

The City of Burbank is motioning for an "Abandoned Shopping Cart Ordinance". This meeting took place in the Burbank, CA on March 20, 2007. The highlights of this proposal are:

• In August 2005, after a the Council staff's presentation, a motion was made for staff to return in the near future with a City of Glendale-style, containment “Abandoned Shopping Cart Ordinance”
• there was only four Council Members present at this meeting and the motion resulted in a split vote and consequently did not pass.
• Continued Council deliberations that evening resulted in direction for staff to wait for the effective date of the Glendale ordinance and later return with a progress report on the status of that ordinance.
• The Council asked to obtain and return with information from public outreach efforts and to understand the Public's opinion on this subject.
• In preparation for reporting back to Council, staff has been in continual contact with City of Glendale officials concerning their ordinance which became effective January 1, 2006.
• All California cities are limited in their efforts to expeditiously abate the issues of blight, liability, and potential health hazards associated with abandoned shopping carts because of the imposition of the protective California State Shopping Cart Law.
• California cities have to either work within the restraints of this law, which usurps an extraordinary amount of personnel resource time, or as the City of Glendale accomplished, adopt and enact an ordinance which restricts shopping carts to the premises of the cart owners.
• The California State Shopping Cart Law became effective in 1997. Since that time the number of abandoned shopping carts has increased significantly in Burbank.
• In 1997, Chapter 19 of the California Business and Professions Code was amended such that, with non-emergency or non-hazardous circumstances, there are restrictions on local governments for enacting legislation which would expedite the removal of abandoned shopping carts from the public right-of-way. This law is known as the California State Shopping Cart and Laundry Cart Law. Consequently, because of the preemptions of this law local governments are limited in how to legislatively address issues associated with abandoned shopping carts.
• Provisions of the California Shopping Cart Law allow abandoned shopping carts, which are not impeding emergency services, to remain at the abandoned location for three working days (72-hours) prior to abatement efforts by a city. Further, this law also requires that after the 72-hour period has lapsed and an abandoned shopping cart has been impounded, the local jurisdiction must notify the owner of the cart of the impound within a 24-hour period.
• If the owner of the cart responds within three working days to pick up a cart that has been impounded, no impound fee, storage fee, fine, or other charges may be rendered by the impounding authority. Fees may only be levied beginning on the fourth working day after the official notice of impound has been delivered.
• State law does not preclude the removal of a cart from a business premises to be considered a theft. However, rarely will a cart owner, if ever, press charges against their clients for the removal of carts from their premises.

• Additional requirements of state law mandate that for the removal of a shopping cart from premises to be considered illegal, the cart must be equipped with a proper sign. This sign must be permanently affixed to the cart and will:
  

  • Identify the owner of the cart
    
  • Notify the public of the procedure to be utilized for authorized removal of the cart from the premises (authorization must be in writing)
  • Notify the public that the unauthorized removal of the cart from the premises or parking area of the retail establishment, or the unauthorized possession of the cart, is a violation of state law
  • List a valid telephone number or address for returning the cart removed from the premises or parking area to the owner or retailer
• Burbank is joined by many other California cities, such as Glendale, Long Beach, San Jose, Berkeley, Oroville, Colton, and Milpitas who, short of seeking an amendment to the state law, are currently researching or utilizing ways to effectively address this issue. Glendale, in particular has recently enacted an effective shopping cart containment ordinance which is reported to have reduced abandoned shopping carts in their city by 95%.
• The Glendale ordinance involves amending the Zone Text of the Glendale Municipal Code to define shopping cart usage as a land use. As a land use, this provides municipalities more options in dealing with abandoned shopping cart issues because they can now work on resolving the problems associated with abandoned shopping carts beyond the restrictions of the State Shopping Cart Law.
  
• The Glendale ordinance requires businesses which provide clients carts, to implement containment or control methods for keeping the carts from leaving the business premises.
• Some communities, including Burbank, have stressed public education in an attempt to try to minimize the negative effects of abandoned carts. Education is an attempt to work within the State law and functions by teaching a community how to be a “watchdog” service for working within the parameters the California Shopping Cart and Laundry Cart Law.
  

Read the full text HERE