Here, there and everywhere: the abandoned shopping carts of Manchester, NH
Friday, July 17, 2009 at 8:34AM The number of abandoned shopping carts littering Manchester’s sidewalks and alleys seems to be increasing. Indeed, over the past four days I’ve come across nearly a dozen abandoned shopping carts while making my normal, everyday rounds.
These wayward carts are most prevalent in the Center City, usually within a half-mile radius of the Valley Street Stop & Shop, from which most appear to have originated, like this one near the intersection of Somerville and Maple streets:
Or this one in the Beech Street School parking lot:
I did, however, spot one more than a mile and a half north of the store, at the First Church of Christ, Scientist, on the corner of Harrison Street and Temple Court:
Presumably these carts are being used by shoppers without automobiles to transport their groceries home, at which point the carts are abandoned somewhere nearby. The funny thing is, I have yet to see anyone actually pushing a shopping cart anywhere, despite my own weekly shopping trips to the Valley Street Stop & Shop, and very frequent walks and drive through the Center City.
When I reported the above-shown carts to store management a couple of days ago, the woman with whom I spoke just sighed.
“They’re everywhere this summer,” she said as she took down the address.
She said the store hires a retrieval service to pick up the strays on a weekly basis. I don’t know how much this company charges for its services, but it must be cheaper than the loss of the carts, which the woman with whom I spoke said cost in the neighborhood of $85-90 apiece.
To me, this system is too reactive. It would be better to prevent the carts from leaving the store’s property in the first place. A more proactive approach would be the installation of system like the Cart Anti-Theft Protection System (CAPS) developed by a company called CartTronics. CAPS works via an electronic sensor attached to each cart which activates built-on wheel locks —rendering it useless — when the cart crosses a magnetic strip that surrounds a store’s parking lot. CAPS has a fairly high upfront cost of some $25,000-$30,000, but everything I've read says it works like a charm.
According to Sheepshead Bites, a Brooklyn-based blog, a CAPS-like system is in place at a Stop & Shop in Brooklyn. Why not in Manchester too?
I wanted to ask this question to Faith Weiner, Stop & Shop's Director of Public Affairs, but she won't return my phone calls. Alas. That said, if you, too, would like to see such a system in Manchester, let Stop & Shop Consumer Affairs know.
It would certainly prevent walk-offs, but also the out-and-out theft of the carts, as has happened in nearby Lynn, Mass., where last summer Stop & Shop carts were being stolen and sold for scrap at 5 cents per pound.
It would seem that the abandoned shopping cart issue is fairly large one. There's even a website dedicated to nothing but photos of abandoned carts. And a one Julian Montague, author of “The Stray Shopping Carts of Eastern North America: A Guide to Field Identification,” even created a complex shopping cart classification system.
The issue is apparently so widespread that some 200 cities across the country have laws on the books requiring store owners to take measures to prevent carts from leaving their parking lots. Manchester, however, is not among these cities.
Said Kevin Kincaid, the Licensing and Compliance Coordinator for the Business Licensing and Enforcement Division of the Office of the City Clerk, in an email:
“They do have signs telling people not to remove them from the lot but I do not think the police are stopping people from using them to get their groceries home."
Will Stewart
As summer has faded into fall, it's been my observation that abandoned shopping carts are even more abundant in Manchester, NH, than they were this summer. On my drive home from work a couple of days ago - a distance of about 1.5 miles - I counted four carts.
Among those was one that, I believe, represents an evolution in the abandoned shopping cart scene of Manchester, NH. Heretofore the practice has been to simply walk off with a shopping cart as a means to walk one's groceries home. Once there, said cart is abandoned somewhere nearby. Before Monday, I never saw evidence of a cart being expropriated and permenantly claimed, as was this one, spotted on the lawn of the Hillsborough County Courthouse, is:
The workding on the handle might lead one to believe this cart belongs to Stop & Shop, but the writing on the seat — "Amanda Carage's (sic)" makes it perfectly clear who the true owner is.
Will Stewart
Thanks to Jason A. for sending this picture of the sign explaining the cart prevention technology now in place at the Valley Street Walgreens:
Will Stewart
It's now been more than a year since I wrote this post and I think there are more abandoned shopping carts in Manchester, NH, than ever before. I will say, however, that they are at least being abandoned with more style this summer:
Will Stewart
After more than a year of looking, I finally spotted a "cart recovery" vehicle collecting abandoned carts yesterday:
Reader Comments (7)
System in UK/Ireland is less high tech, but works very well, you need to insert a 1 Euro or 1 Pound coin to release the cart, when you bring it back to the corral and reattach it you get your coin back, if you don't bring it back someone else will to collect the Euro. No only are there few carts around the neighborhoods there are none left around the parking lot to hit cars!!!
Now if only the dollar coin was more ubiquitous.
That sounds like a very good idea, dublnr - very similar to the luggage cart system in airports.
There are actually a couple of grocery stores here in Tennessee that do the cart rental. It's something like .25 cents and you get it back when you return the cart. They also charge roughly .10 cents per paper bag, but you are free to keep and re-use them or bring those lovely re-usable bags that are sold almost everywhere now.
last month there were two cart in my yard. I called Stop and shop and gave them the address. what we have here is poor people who have no other means to get their groceries home. with money tight as it is, and bills to pay, one can hardly fault a person for needing to eat and thereby needing to get groceries home without extra cost of cab fair. Eventually the truck comes around and picks up the carts, in the meantime the neighborhood children have a toy.
Oh and Will- one of the more colorful pictures you could photograph is the cart belonging to one of the scrappers. I saw one the otherday that had what looked like colorful ribbons all over it. In actuallity they were the colored handled of the trashbags that had previously been tied to the cart.
The Walgreens on Valley now has a system which locks the wheels of the carts (carriages?) if they go beyond the parking lot.
Kartlok
" There are other options. Involve the community and the retailers in the problem by putting on the coin locks they use all over the UK, Europe, Australia,etc. It worked to solve the problem there, it's simple, inexpensive and doesn't cost shoppers a penny. Kartloks organize parking lots by encouraging customers to take back the cart. It is a win win situation. Municipalities all around the States are starting to insist on these systems. People are tired of seeing carts abandoned in neighborhoods and waterways and they want to participate in helping to clear it up! "