Phoenix may consider locking devices on shopping carts

Phoenix is exploring whether to require devices be installed on shopping carts to keep them out of neighborhoods.

Last year, Phoenix retrieved nearly 8,000 abandoned shopping carts. Of those, 75% were collected from retailers who have their own retrieval system. 

On Wednesday, Neighborhood Services Director Spencer Self told council members half the carts collected by the city belong to Walmart and Fry’s.

“Walmart uses locking wheels at seven of their 15 locations, and Fry’s uses them at 27 of their 28 stores, although I would point out that my team noted at least two of those locations where they had a mixture of carts, so some with locking wheel mechanisms, some without,” he said.

Phoenix contracts with a vendor to pick up abandoned shopping carts. It’s not known how many carts the city retrieves have restrictive devices installed. When the city collects a retailer’s cart, it charges $50 if the retailer does not have its own cart retrieval system and $25 if the retailer does have its own system. Phoenix requires its vendor to collect carts within 48 hours of a request being made.

In discussing a potential ordinance requiring retailers to install restrictive devices on carts, Self pointed out some cities with such an ordinance allow retailers to opt out if they have their own cart retrieval system.

Councilwoman Ann O’Brien said she was reticent to allow retailers to opt out, “Given that Fry’s has — and we don’t know if they’re working though, —  27 of their 28 stores, they say they have locking mechanisms, yet in our collection, they’re 24% of the collection. … If they have data, they need to share all their data, not just the data they want to share. We need to see the full picture. And we need to know what is operational, what’s not, where it’s working,” O’Brien said.

Trish Hart, a representative for the Arizona Food Marketing Alliance, said shopping cart retrieval typically depends on  need, “So one store may only get pickups maybe once a week, because that’s all they need. Some have, you know, three and four times per week. So it just depends upon the store and what the need is on how those cart retrieval services are utilized. But several of our stores utilize cart retrieval services.”

She said the group looks forward to working with the city to resolve the issue.