SAULT STE. MARIE -- It's become a problem in Sault Ste. Marie, grocery carts that are taken from a store and are being left all over the city.
Now, city council is getting involved with a new bylaw regarding shopping cart retrieval.
In the area around Old Garden River Road, stray shopping carts can be seen in ditches, on sidewalks, and by apartment buildings.
"They get in the way. Like even in the front doors to get into the apartment, people leave the shopping carts so the door can’t open," one resident told CTV News.
Others had this to say:
"Some of the time, the carts have been turned upside down and thrown on the ground. It’s a safety hazard when people walk by, they could definitely fall."
"End up in the apartment buildings, mark up the walls, elevators, the streets, the doors."
City council wants the new bylaw to force stores to retrieve carts that have been taken off their properties.
As of right now, the city’s public works staff is picking up the slack.
"A lot of stores will send somebody around to go pick up their carts and bring them back to them, pay them a couple dollars per cart or whatever. There are a couple stores in town, unfortunately, that don’t do that, and their carts are the ones we see most prominently on the sidewalks that the taxpayers have to pay to go get picked up," said Sault Ste. Marie City Councillor Matthew Shoemaker.
Another city councillor, Lisa Vezeau-Allen, supports this effort, but says it’s also important to address the underlying reason why people steal shopping carts in the first place.
"For many people, paying for that ride share or paying for a taxi or paying for a bus just isn’t possible, so that’s why we have the shopping carts. So, is it volunteers through Red Cross that take people grocery shopping? Is it a program through the college? Is it a community bus?" said Vezeau-Allen.
Shoemaker says a recent by passed by council is aimed at helping people access transportation.
"Last meeting, we passed a ride sharing bylaw, which will bring the cost of people getting to and from various locations down significantly. So, hopefully that will start to address the issue of people getting their groceries home in a cost-effective manner,” said Shoemaker.
Shoemaker says other communities have bylaws similar to this one and that it makes more sense to hold retailers accountable for their own shopping carts as opposed to having city police penalize people who steal them.
