\u201cWe have a challenging budget year, next year. We\u2019re going to be in service preservation mode as a council,\u201d District 8 Councilmember Domingo Candelas said during the Dec. 16 City Council meeting.<\/p>\n While councilmembers didn\u2019t approve any specific action during\u00a0the pilot program review, officials are working on proposals for a permanent program that could launch as soon as next summer \u2014 if approved.<\/p>\n It would mark the latest effort to deal with the\u00a0vexing shopping cart abandonment problem<\/a>\u00a0that has plagued San Jose for decades.<\/p>\n \u201cThe thousands of carts that are lost every year and\u00a0scattered across sidewalks and parks and our trails and waterways<\/a>\u00a0are not just a visible quality of life issue for our residents, not just an eyesore, but they actually really damage the environment,\u201d Mayor Matt Mahan said at the meeting.<\/p>\n Annual cost to recover carts gives pause<\/p>\n The $32,000 pilot program, carried out between August and November, saw the city partner with the company carTrac to retrieve 734 carts strewn about certain target areas. Officials project scaling up the program across the entire city would cost $686,000 each year and likely pull in more than 12,800 carts.<\/p>\n Earlier this year, city staff warned state regulations would make it hard for San Jose to recoup the expenses from such a program. Those include rules that limit the fees California cities can charge retailers for cart retrievals.<\/p>\n However, state Sen. Dave Cortese\u2019s Senate Bill 753<\/a>,\u00a0signed into law in October with backing from San Jose<\/a>, has loosened those regulations. The measure has increased the maximum fines cities can impose on grocers with lost carts from $50 to $100 for each cart retrieved. It also removed the state\u2019s requirement that cities maintain an impound lot for recovered shopping carts.<\/p>\n \u201cThe thousands of carts that are lost every year \u2026 are not just a visible quality of life issue for our residents, not just an eyesore, but they actually really damage the environment.\u201d<\/p>\n Mayor Matt Mahan<\/p>\n If San Jose were to set its retrieval fine at $100, staff estimated that a city-wide recovery program would draw in $1.3 million each year, far more than the program\u2019s projected expense. However, the city would still face upfront costs to get the program up and running, including the need to pay for staff to oversee the effort, officials said.<\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s really the value in the pilot is being able to dig through the couch cushions to find resources, so we could experiment and see what it looked like,\u201d Chris Burton, director of Planning Building and Code Enforcement, said at the meeting. \u201cAnd it is a successful program.\u201d<\/p>\n Onus on retailers to enhance loss prevention<\/p>\n Councilmembers already passed a policy in May that\u00a0strengthens oversight regulations for the city\u2019s retailers<\/a>. The new rules require stores with 76 or more shopping carts to carry out enhanced measures to prevent cart losses, such as installing theft-prevention devices, requiring customers to pay a deposit for using a cart or paying a cart retrieval service directly to recover their lost carts.<\/p>\n The city\u2019s shopping cart crackdown has faced opposition from local retailers and industry groups. They have warned that by tightening regulations, the city is imposing added costs on grocery stores that will be passed along to residents.<\/p>\n San Jose grocer Lupe Lopez, who owns Arteaga\u2019s Food Center, argued in an op-ed piece for the Mercury News that Cortese\u2019s state law\u00a0fails to address the root problems<\/a>\u00a0that lead some people to steal carts, including a lack of transportation.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s a shame the city couldn\u2019t have focused its efforts on legislation to offer support to those in need, not drive up grocery costs,\u201d Lopez wrote.<\/p>\n Contact Keith Menconi at\u00a0keith@sanjosespotlight.com\u00a0or @KeithMenconi on X.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/1766696596_790_LNM-20250616-SJSPOTLIGHTLOGO-01.jpg\")
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