City Council Leans on Store Owners to Contain Carts

Monday, 9 November 2015 05:44

Store owners will have 6 months to find an effective solution to roaming shopping carts in The Friendly City.

WOODSTOCK - The topic of abandoned shopping carts squeaked back into city council chambers.

Councillor Todd Poetter first brought up the issue and explains the decision council was able to accept. "We are looking at the owners of the stores, that allow their shopping carts outside to come up with some sort of a plan to ensure that the tax payer will not have to pay for their shopping carts to go back to their stores. We're asking their cooperation - we've put a time limit on it of 6 months to see if they have made any progress." Owner of Foodland Chris Chapman says unless you put a by-law in place more carts will continue to end up around the city.

Chapman knows how much of a pain picking up shopping carts can be but he doesn't believe the city has landed on the right resolution just yet. "They are an eyesore, they can be in the way, that's why I am out there collecting them in my truck everyday. A lot of the recommendations they had were going to incur expenses for the companies involved without necessarily doing anything about alleviating the problem in the community."

As Woodstock City Council is prepared to combat the issue, Chapman knows there are a large number of carts that never return to his store and hopes that all business owners will step up and contain their carts. "The big concern was making sure that the other players in the market had more pressure put on them, and if necessary put the pressure from the top down so that they could hire a third party or someone that could collect carts for them. It's a problem that has always been there and it is just how well we can assume responsibility to clean up and get the carts under control as soon as possible, but they are still going to wander." Chapman was concerned that limiting the use of shopping carts from leaving his property might drive customers away to other businesses.