If you’ve seen loose shopping carts around The Town of Yucca Valley, city officials say they are becoming more common, and so this week they announced a partnership with Cart Retrieval, Inc. in order to recover stray and abandoned shopping carts. The program is related to a Town Ordinance that was adopted in 2010, which attempts to regulate and address abandoned shopping carts.
The Town has contracted with the Rancho Cucomonga-based Cart Retrieval Inc, a company that will send workers to collect shopping carts three times a week, and charge the town a fee per shopping cart retrieved. Shopping carts are required to be marked with their store of origin, and each cart will be returned by Cart Retrieval, Inc. to the stores from which they were removed.
The Town will then charge the stores for each cart that is returned. This chain of events is one component of the Town’s overall requirement that stores providing shopping carts must maintain an effective containment and management program.
Representatives from the Town of Yucca Valley say that the issue of abandoned shopping carts has grown recently, especially in areas near shopping centers, around recycling facilities, and in washes, and that they constitute an eyesore and sometimes a hazard.
When asked if a cart retriever encounters a cart that is currently being used as shelter or storage by an unhoused person, a representative from the Town of Yucca Valley said that the situation would be handled on a case-by-case basis depending on the circumstances in accordance with state law.
