Bill aims to put wheel locks on shopping carts

A new City Council bill aims to crack down on wayward shopping carts on Oahu.

But at least one veteran supermarket executive says the measure might be more trouble than it’s worth.

Bill 33, introduced by Councilman Trevor Ozawa, would require businesses that offer the use of shopping carts to patrons to include “wheel-locking mechanisms” on each of the carts that would prevent them from being removed from the premises.

The bill, which gets its first airing before the Council on Wednesday, also would require the carts be marked “in a conspicuous and permanent manner” including businesses’ names, addresses and telephone numbers.

Failure by businesses to comply could result in administrative fines of between $500 and $2,000, according to the bill.

Ozawa was unavailable for comment Monday. But Ozawa aide Francis Choe said the measure is being introduced to combat a growing number of abandoned and stolen shopping carts in the community.

“Just in our district we have seen the abandonment of many shopping carts in the neighborhoods of Kaimuki, Kahala and Waialae,” Choe said.

State law already makes it a civil or criminal violation to steal a shopping cart, and allows businesses to recover the replacement cost of stolen carts through Hawaii Small Claims Court.

Ozawa’s bill, as introduced, is only “a starting point,” Choe said. “Through working and discussions with other Council members, residents and stakeholders, the end result may be very different.”

Bob Stout, who retired last week as president of Times Super Markets, said nearly all of the company’s 17 Oahu locations already have wagons with wheel-locking capabilities that prohibit them from being removed from store parking lots except through strong exertion.

The only three Oahu markets without locking-wheel carts are at shopping complexes where landlords either prohibit such devices or are demanding an exorbitant cost to have such technology installed on their properties, Stout said.

Council members will need to deal with such complexities if they want the bill to work, he said.

“It’s just adding costs,” Stout said of the bill.

Installing a wheel-locking system costs about $20,000 for each location, Stout said, including the installation of the locks in each cart and an electronic system to freeze the wheels once they reach a designated perimeter.

To include the type of permanent stamp or decal described in the bill would likely cost an additional $25 per wagon, which already cost between $125 and $130 each, he said. Times “probably has a couple thousand carts on the island of Oahu,” he said.

Those establishments at locations where cart theft has been a problem have more likely than not already installed wheel-locking technology, he said.

“If you’ve got a neighborhood where you lose a lot of wagons, you’ve got to do it because too many would disappear,” he said. “Financially, it makes good sense. But to put that in every store in every single neighborhood … I don’t think in certain neighborhoods there are a whole lot of shopping cart thefts.”

Times first began using wheel-locking wagons about 12 years ago, Stout said.

While they help deter cart theft to some extent, there’s little difference in the percentage of carts taken from those stores without wheel-locking wagons and those that do use them, he said.

That’s largely because the three shopping complexes where they’re not used are in rural areas, and carts are more likely to be taken from urban environments, he said.

A majority of wagons are taken by apartment or condominium dwellers who live within walking distance of supermarkets, he said. “All of our town stores have locks.”

A lesser percentage are taken by homeless people, he said. “You actually see homeless with wagons, but that’s not where a majority of the loss is.”

And those who need to drive to the supermarket are far less likely to take them, he said.

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To see the text of Bill 33, go to: bit.ly/HNLCouncilBill 332016.