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By Alessia Proietti

Fines and impoundment fee

Red Deer bylaw amendment regarding shopping carts

Oct 12, 2022 | 1:13 PM

Red Deer city council defeated a proposed amendment to the Community Standards Bylaw at Tuesday’s meeting relating to shopping carts.

At their October 11 meeting, administration recommended that council do not give second and third reading to the City-proposed amendment that would charge a fine to individuals for stealing a shopping cart and a fee to business owners for its return.

READ: Livestock, shopping carts, vehicle noise: Red Deer city council discusses their regulation

Erin Stuart, Inspections and Licensing Manager for the City, says the initial intent of the amendment, given first reading by council on April 25, 2022, was not to enforce, but to reunite shopping carts with business owners. However, upon further reflection, she says administration deemed the bylaw would not solve the root cause of the issue of carts being used by persons with no fixed address as a means of transport and shelter.

The amendment proposed fines from $75-300 to individuals for removing a cart off its property, with an unpaid conviction remaining on their record and prevention of utilizing registry services. Business owners would potentially be charged an impoundment fee as well by the City for the return of their cart.

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Following first reading, council directed administration to explore the removal of the impoundment fee, other penalty options, and potentially requiring businesses to submit an annual cart management plan.

Administration discovered that a person fined for stealing a cart could not be demanded in court for nonpayment as the penalty must be over $1,000, which the City deemed would be inconsistent with the nature of the offence.

A past survey was drawn from May 2021, where various businesses were asked for feedback on an amendment that would fine owners between $250-2,500 for failure to keep their carts on their premise. Over 50 businesses in Red Deer were listed to own over 50 shopping carts.

The City states businesses were generally not in favor of the additional regulations directed to them.

One respondent said, “Not seeing the benefits in the draft; we currently spend 30-40 hours across four to six associates a day to collect carts and bring them inside but attempting to keep them from leaving the parking lot is both monumentous but dangerous. Homeless and others who do not drive have put up significant resistance to having them return to the store. RCMP do not have the time to support the stores when a customer insists on removing them from the property. We have tried to use coin systems or locking wheel which come at an expense but they are both easily deactivated.”

Another respondent said, “I have spent $35,000 on a cart containment system through gate keeper. The cart locks-up and stays.”

Councillor Vesna Higham expressed understanding for the frustrations of business owners over the lack of enforcement on shopping cart theft in contrast to speeding tickets which are enforced on law abiding citizens.

“We are, in effect, turning a blind eye to criminal offences that are happening all over our community,” she said. “While I see the validity of these concerns, and I don’t disagree, there are also larger social and philosophical concerns that we have to address and pieces that we have to put into place in the bigger picture in how we as a community balance.”

For Red Deer’s vulnerable population, Councillor Cindy Jefferies says she believes the bylaw amendment would further a cycle of unfortunate events. Upon watching the recent documentary “Why Don’t You See Me?” by the Canadian Mental Health Association, she referenced one interviewees lived experience with homelessness.

“I’ll recall one of the gentlemen saying, ‘I get a ticket for having a cart, or whatever the ticket might be for, and then I don’t get the second ticket and I don’t get the summons because I don’t have an address. Then I get this mark on my record if I’m picked up and arrested; now I’ve got more issues to solve and I can’t access funding for housing because I’m not registered anymore and I can’t do that until I pay those fines’,” she said.

Administration confirmed that the City of Calgary, where an impoundment fee on businesses is currently implemented, has collected $31,000 this year by July 2022 from shopping cart retrievals.

With the removal of the fee in Red Deer, Stuart says the bylaw would be unnecessary as current operational processes require City employees, such as road and trail maintenance workers, to pick up shopping carts as part of their job. The carts are retrieved after proven abandoned for 24 hours.

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