Renton To Get Tougher On Loose Shopping Carts

RENTON, WA — Right up there with plastic bags, cigarette butts, and poorly parked bikeshare bikes, abandoned shopping carts are common scourge of the urban landscape.

Renton already has a law that allows police to impound loose carts, but the law is about to get tougher. The City Council on Monday passed an update to the city's shopping cart impound law to increase fines for repeat offenders.

Under the current law, businesses get a $100 fine for each cart impounded by the city in a given month. But now businesses that let 12 or more carts go missing will be fined $200 for each cart.

But the update also boosts the number of fine deferral a business can get.

Under current law, a business can avoid fines by either adding signs to carts (with information detailing the business name, address, and phone number among other pieces of information) or implementing security measures to keep carts from wandering off — like those carts whose wheels lock if you leave the parking lot. Under the old law, businesses could get up to three fine deferrals per month, but that number has been increased to eight. Businesses don't get any deferrals if they have more than nine carts impounded per month.

Renton residents also have an obligation under the law. Anyone who removes a cart from a business can be charged with a misdemeanor. It's also a violation of city law to allow carts to accumulate on multi-family and industrial properties.

The new shopping cart ordinance updates take effect in 30 days.