So, I just read this article:
Georgia City Wants to Penalize Stores When Their Carts are Stolen and I have a lot of thoughts on this. And a story.
I was going to write a Twitter thread, but then I realized it might be more than a handful of tweets and I have a blog. So, you're welcome.
Shopping carts aren't really cheap for stores. They cost a lot to buy, their wheels go wonky on a regular basis and have to be fixed, they take up a lot of storage space, and workers have to take the time (money) to go around and round them up many times every single day. I should know, as pushing carts was a big part of my job for years.
Stores do not want to lose their carts. Some stores, like Aldi, have a locking system so that you have to pay a quarter to get a cart and you get the quarter back when you return it. I haven't worked at Aldi, so I don't know for certain, but I'm sure that system doesn't work out too well all the time - I imagine the locks breaking (or being damaged by would-be thieves) and not returning quarters, customers being unhappy. Heck, that's part of the reason why I don't like shopping at Aldi (mostly it's because their produce is always rotten, but there's a slew of reasons). So, the quarter-lock system isn't ideal. Most stores don't have much of a system for preventing cart theft, beyond cameras at the entrances.
The proposed bill "encourag[es] stores to offer cash returns in exchange for returned
carts," which supposedly "would create jobs in the community. 'If it's $1 to return a cart,
or even fifty cents to return a cart, there are people who would get
those carts and turn them in for the money.'"
Uh, no. Unless it works like the Aldi locks, all this would do is create "jobs" in as much as people will claim they found a lost cart, when they actually just found it in the cart corral in the parking lot so they can get a dollar. That's theft, BTW. And the proposed dollar amounts wouldn't work with the Aldi locks because very few people carry around $1 or $0.50 coins.
The store I worked at was probably the most-frequented grocery store in the county. We were jam-packed every Sunday afternoon (want to know a secret? Go grocery shopping Sunday morning, when everyone is at church. The store is dead and cashiers are still in a good mood.) and the for entire two weeks leading up to Thanksgiving, nearly every cart was in constant use. We had tons of carts. Hundreds. Two entrances, both with large vestibules, could be filled up with carts and we still had more left over. The extra carts were stored outside, right along the front wall. Throughout the entire day, there was always at least one person (often 2 or 3) outside, pushing the carts from the 4 corrals in the parking lot to the vestibules. Being paid $9/hour or more. On particularly cold days, that person couldn't be sent out for a long time, so more people had to be scheduled so there was a regular rotation. One particularly hot days, the store had to provide bottled water as well. Just to handle the carts. Think about how much it costs to hire someone. Think about the fact that most people willing to work in a grocery store pushing carts are teenagers who are generally unreliable and don't last long. I hope you're getting an idea of how much money this store spent just to handle carts. I don't know the exact number, but it's high.
It was a 24-hour store, but at night, the carts were moved outside (always under constant camera surveillance) so the vestibule floors could be cleaned. That store had been at that location for a very long time, and cart theft was a regular thing, but generally only involved someone who lived nearby (either in a building or a tent) and walked to the store walking off with the cart their groceries were in rather than carry the unreliable plastic bags to their home. A small trickle of lost carts. Some were retrieved, most weren't. Every few months, the store bought a dozen more to replace the lost ones. Expensive, but not crippling. And not much the store could do to prevent it without driving away customers who were never going to steal a cart.
One day, either a manager coming in for his shift in the morning, or whoever was tasked with bringing the carts back inside discovered that a bunch of carts were gone. The next day, more were gone. Then more the third day. For almost a week, a couple guys with a truck were pulling up in front of the store and loading as many carts as they could into their truck and driving off with them. Presumably to break them down and sell the metal.
This was shortly before Thanksgiving. There were, fortunately for us, two other stores in the area owned by the same company from which we could borrow carts until we could buy more. But those stores couldn't spare many, being close to Thanksgiving and all, so we had very, very few carts for the number of people shopping. No one was happy. I guarantee that the store lost money because people who were planning on doing their Thanksgiving shopping took one look at the empty vestibule, turned around, and drove the half-mile down the street to the competing store.
From what I heard, our store lost money that month. The most popular grocery store in the area lost money in November because of stolen carts. And they still didn't find it economically reasonable to put locks on the carts.
Stores do not want their carts to be stolen. They try to find a good balance between preventing theft and deterring customers. They do not need the government stepping in telling them it's their fault if people steal their carts and abandon them. There are enough places out there without a decent grocery store, we don't need policies to deter them from opening up.
