TO: Honorable Mayor and Members of the City Council
THRU: Tom Kisela, City Manager
FROM: Russell Bunim, Community Development Director
1. Subject
title
Introduction and First Reading of Ordinance No. 30-24 amending Chapter 8.06 of the Orange Municipal Code establishing mandatory shopping cart retrieval plan and containment system.
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2. Summary
Ordinance No. 30-24 establishes regulations requiring retail establishments to implement a shopping cart retrieval plan and containment system in accordance with State law to prevent the abandonment of unattended shopping carts on public and private property.
3. Recommended Action
recommendation
Introduce and conduct First Reading of Ordinance No. 30-24. An Ordinance of the City Council of the City of Orange amending Chapter 8.06 of the Orange Municipal Code establishing mandatory shopping cart retrieval plan and containment system.
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4. Fiscal Impact
None.
5. Strategic Plan Goals
Goal 1: Provide for a safe community
a: Provide staffing and resources to deliver services that ensure public safety.
6. Discussion and Background
The City Council and community members have raised concerns about the persistent issue of unattended or abandoned shopping carts throughout the City given their significant impacts to public health, safety, and the welfare of residents, visitors, and businesses. A proliferation of shopping carts also diminishes the visual appeal and economic development potential of the City’s major commercial corridors and hubs.
Unattended or abandoned shopping carts negatively affect the community in the following ways:
• Impede pedestrian, cycling, and vehicular traffic including emergency services;
• Create hazardous conditions for users of sidewalks, parking lots and other public rights-of-way such as citizens with disabilities;
• Erode residents' sense of safety within the community; and
• Increase demand for city resources needed to remove them from the public right-of-way.
Implementing effective solutions to address these problems is crucial to maintaining a safe, attractive, and thriving community.
The current provisions of the Orange Municipal Code (OMC) fail to hold retail establishments accountable for retrieving or securing their carts after business hours. Consequently, the City's Public Works staff routinely removes dozens of carts from public property, incurring costs without any recovery of resources. The California Business and Professions Code (CBPC) authorizes cities to impose regulations and enforcement mechanisms to prevent the removal of shopping carts from the retail premises or parking areas.
The proposed ordinance addresses the issue of unattended or abandoned shopping carts by incorporating provisions of the CBPC. Key components of the ordinance include:
1. Requirements for cart identification and store signage.
2. Mandatory submission of a Shopping Cart Retrieval and Containment Plan, including:
o Contact information for notifications;
o Prompt retrieval from public property;
o Daily cart confinement at the end of the business day;
o Cart inventory;
o Description of retrieval plan; and
o Details of the physical containment measures.
The physical containment measures may include, without limitation, electronic or other disabling devices installed on the carts; bollards or other structures installed on the perimeter of the store premises; use of a contracted cart retrieval company; employees accompanying customers to their vehicles and returning carts to the store; or a security deposit for customer's use of a cart.
Code Enforcement will work with new and existing retail establishments with ten or more carts to comply with the specified timeframes upon the effective date of the ordinance:
• 60 days to submit the Retrieval and Containment Plan.
• Six months to install a physical containment system (extensions possible under certain conditions).
Business owners will be responsible for paying the City's actual costs for retrieving and storing their shopping carts, with one exception: if the owner or their authorized agent reclaims the cart(s) within three business days of receiving notice of the cart(s)' discovery, location, or impoundment, all fines, costs, and fees will be waived, as required by State law. If the cart(s) are not reclaimed within this period, then fines and retrieval costs will be assessed against the responsible retail establishment.
Staff plans to collaborate with property owners and retail establishments to achieve the goals of the proposed ordinance, prioritizing compliance over punitive or abatement measures. However, punitive or abatement actions will be reserved for special cases where there is a lack of cooperation or a failure to comply with the Code.
7. ATTACHMENTS
• Ordinance No. 30-24 - CLEAN
• Ordinance No. 30-24 - REDLINED