Beaumont Cracking Down On Abandoned Shopping Carts

BEAUMONT, CA — Tired of seeing abandoned shopping carts in Beaumont? City officials certainly are.

Tuesday night city council members unanimously voted to clamp down on the situation, and a new ordinance is in the works.

According to a city memo, city staff spends two to three hours per week picking up abandoned shopping carts. The carts are collected and stored in the city yard. When the spot gets full — approximately 80 carts — city staffers contact the various cart owners to have them removed.

From July 2019 through September 2019, city staff picked up 78 abandoned shopping carts, the bulk of which were from Food 4 Less and Stater Bros., according to the city memo.

In drafting an ordinance, staffers are considering what other cities have on the books. Some of the ideas include requiring retailers to post signs/notices on their properties warning customers that removal of a cart from the premises is a prosecutable crime, and requiring retailers to participate in a cart retrieval plan.

Once an ordinance is drafted, it will come back to city council for approval.