$5,000-a-day fines proposed to corral runaway shopping carts

Sault Ste. Marie City Council will be asked Monday to crack down on grocery stores and other retailers that fail to stop shopping carts from leaving their properties.

Cart-toting shoppers and owners of private properties where carts are abandoned also face hefty fines under a bylaw proposed by Melanie Borowicz-Sibenik, assistant city solicitor; Freddie Pozzebon, chief building official; and Susan Hamilton-Beach, director of public works.

"City councillors and citizens have experienced the nuisance of shopping carts being removed from retail and grocery stores, and thereafter abandoned on both private and public property within the City of Sault Ste. Marie," the administrative troika say in a report to Mayor Provenzano and councillors.

"City staff directly and through councillors have received complaints of unsightly shopping carts left abandoned. In other cases, abandoned carts have caused potential risk and liability issues, as they could be left on sidewalks or even roadways."

The city's public works’ staff have tried to reach out to retailers to get them to retrieve their wayward carts.

"In some instances, cooperation has been achieved and the store or their contractor has attended to pick up their carts. In other instances however, the carts remain and/or a retailer advises of the arrangements it has in place to retrieve their abandoned carts, which results in carts remaining on properties for weeks at a time. City staff have also attended to remove carts when liability issues are present," the report says.

Council will be asked to approve a new bylaw requiring all business owners using shopping carts to have a shopping cart management system that provides:

• the full particulars and details of the system
• the full particulars including timelines of how the business owner shall retrieve and return any abandoned shopping carts outside the owner’s premises
• a general description of the business owner’s shopping carts including easily identifiable features (ie. colour, business owner’s name)
• any other information that the city may request

The proposed bylaw stipulates that:

• no business owner shall allow or permit the removal of a shopping cart from the business owner’s premises
• no business owner shall allow or permit a shopping cart owned or used by their business to be abandoned on any property (city or private) outside of the business owner’s premises
• no person shall remove a shopping cart from a business owner’s premises and/or otherwise place, leave, deposit or stop a shopping cart on any property outside of the business owner’s premises; and
• no private property owner shall allow or permit a shopping cart to be abandoned, placed, left, deposited or stopped on its private property

Penalties for violating the bylaw would be up to $5,000 per offence, and each day that an offence is committed or permitted to continue will constitute a separate offence.

If approved by councillors, the new bylaw will take effect on Sept. 7.

Monday's City Council meeting will be livestreamed on SooToday starting at 4:30 p.m.