Tulsa World // News Article By Neal Franklin A “mess” of abandoned shopping carts around Tulsa has city councilors looking for guidance, with discussions likely to continue after a committee meeting Wednesday. Councilor Jayme Fowler first raised the issue in March. During Wednesday’s Urban and Economic Development Committee meeting, he updated councilors on his research into how other cities are handling abandoned carts and said retailers should be part of the conversation. “The reality is, where we are now is that the way that we address shopping carts is an absolute, total, complete, unmitigated disaster,” Fowler said. Councilor Laura Bellis brought in research showing that “for a year, rounding up about 3,000 carts in Santa Fe, New Mexico, … cost them about $50,000 in just time and energy.” Fowler presented information on programs in other cities — San Francisco, Detroit, Boston, Tampa — that have tried to address the proliferation of shopping carts taken from retailers. Fowler said he didn’t think those programs were necessarily a perfect fit for Tulsa. Many of the programs presented by Fowler involved imposing fees or other punishments on people who take the carts or on the retailers whose carts are found off their properties. The next step of this process, Fowler said, is consulting with local retailers about their own ideas for addressing the problem. In a previous meeting, Fowler had proposed imposing a fee on retailers whose shopping carts end up elsewhere. Later he said fining retailers is not the right solution. The city of Tulsa already picks up carts when they are found on the streets, Fowler said. Councilor Lori Decter Wright said anti-theft devices for carts could be a solution. Fowler said such devices could be easily disabled. “I hesitate to do anything that’s going to penalize any retailer, because that is how we fund our services,” Wright said, adding that “when we talk about enforcement those retail sales taxes would be funding the enforcement.” She said it may be better to incentivize businesses while not penalizing poverty. Councilor Phil Lakin Jr. said a contractor could make money off collecting the neglected carts. “If the city can take proposals, award a contract to an independent entity to go collect these things for a price per cart — say we don’t want people doing this; we want a bona fide company to do this,” Lakin said. Bellis said that is similar to what Fayetteville, Arkansas, and Santa Fe, New Mexico, have done. In Tulsa the carts are often impounded if businesses don’t claim them. Councilor Christian Bengel said businesses are unlikely to reclaim the carts. “I know they don’t want that cart back because of whatever adventure it went on, but I just don’t know how you could address this unless they’re going to implement some sort of system where they police themselves,” Bengel said.
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AuthorI am a writer pursuing a career in Journalism who has covered topics in Tulsa, Oklahoma, the D.C. area and American University. Archives
April 2024
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