As Julian Montague drove around Buffalo, New York, he noticed them everywhere.
Tipped over at intersections, crushed by snowplows in parking lots, waiting alone at bus stops. Shopping carts had wandered away from their stores.
Montague, an artist, began photographing the wayward carts and eventually developed a complex classification system that sorted his sightings into more than 30 different categories.
"A lot of people, the shorthand for shopping carts, they think of homeless people appropriating them and using them," said Montague. "And that is something that happens, but it's such a small percentage of the activity that takes place."
Montague's book, "The Stray Shopping Carts of Eastern North America: A Guide to Field Identification," humorously and rigorously documented a social problem that has been plaguing retailers and local governments for decades. Lawmakers and residents say the abandoned carts are a blight on neighborhoods, can cause environmental damage and are a costly burden to remove.
Despite some pushback, a growing number of municipalities are cracking down on shopping cart theft. In Federal Way, Washington, taking a cart off store property can result in a $50 fine. California cities can now charge businesses for the hassle of rounding up their carts. And if retailers in Phoenix don't adequately address the issue, they'll have to install GPS trackers on their carts.
"These carts, often left behind without retailers having any meaningful retrieval plan, are not just annoyances," Phoenix City Councilmember Betty Guardado said at a September meeting. "They obstruct sidewalks, clutter public spaces and contribute to the deterioration of our community's appearance and quality of life."
Cities charge thousands for shopping cart retrieval
Many retailers voluntarily hire cart retrieval companies to find and return their lost property, but often the burden of tracking down loose carts falls on local governments.
Phoenix's Neighborhood Services Department spent more than $58,000 to collect over 7,800 carts in fiscal year 2024. The city's cart retrieval program,which was formalized in October, can charge stores as much as $50 per cart returned to them, thoughRepublican state lawmakers are looking to stop Arizona cities from fining businessesfor the service.
In Federal Way, Washington, one city employee is tasked with driving around to hunt for abandoned carts and respond to sightings reported through a city app, according to Keith Niven, the city's community development director.
The city charges retailers $25 to return each cart and in 2025, stores paid more than $18,000 for the service, Niven said. But many business owners chose to let the city dispose of the carts, which are either recycled, taken to the dump or donated.
In recent years, Federal Way's so-called shopping cart jail has filled up less often, and retailers seem to be doing a better job at keeping their carts on their property, Niven said. But the constant turnover among staff can present a challenge.
"Eventually they figure out that they can't just leave their shopping carts in the parking lot overnight, and then things get better. But then that manager ends up being either relocated or they get another job," Niven said, starting the cycle all over again.
In California, abillsponsored by state Sen. Dave Cortese that allows cities to recoup the costs of cart retrieval from businesses went into effect in January. Cortese, whose family owns a shopping center, said the state has been looking for ways to address the cart problem since he first joined the San Jose City Council more than 25 years ago and it's too soon to tell if they'll ever succeed.
"It's possible we'll still be overwhelmed by shopping carts even after this bill," Cortese said. "Only time will tell."
Some retailers 'definitely not in compliance' with cart security requirements
Multiple citieshave passed ordinancesrequiring retailers toequip their shopping carts with locking devicesor implement other security measures to stop carts from getting out in the first place. Stores have sought out technology to prevent cart theft at least since GateKeeper Systems began offering it in 1999, according to the company's chief commercial officer Craig Greenberg.
"I was a retailer before GateKeeper and cart loss was a very costly and challenging problem that had a high impact on the shopper experience," Greenberg said.
Gatekeeper Systems sells SmartWheel technology, which automatically locks the wheels of a cart when it leaves a boundary designated using radiofrequencies. Some retailers, most prominentlyAldi, have invested in other kinds of cart locking systems that require a quarter to be deposited in order to access the cart.
Phoenix leaders passed an ordinancerequiring retailers toequip their shopping carts with such locking devicesor hire a cart-retrieval company in a unanimous vote, as residents voiced growing frustrations with the eyesore.
If the city finds that it's still rounding up a lot of carts from a certain retailer, the store will be required to have its contractor collect carts twice a week. Should the problem persist, the shop will have to place GPS trackers on its carts and collect them daily.
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Stores had to confirm they were in compliance with the new law by Jan. 15 or face penalties ranging from $500 for a first violation, and $1,000 for the third violation within three years.
In some municipalities, like Prince George's County, Maryland, penalties are even stricter. Retailers there that have more than 20 shopping carts must take proactive steps to prevent their carts from being stolen or face a fine of $2,000 per day.
That shopping cart lawwent into effect in August, but so far enforcement by county officials and compliance among retailers has been lax,according to County Council Member Wanika Fisher,who proposed the bill. The county executive's office did not immediately respond to a request for comment from USA TODAY.
"My hope is for them to roll out the enforcement soon, but I'm working with the county executive to make sure it happens," she said. "But they're definitely not in compliance."
Fisher and other lawmakers have faced pushback from retailers over the fines and the cost of implementing cart security measures.
"It's a difficult situation," said Greenberg. "Because if you think about it, it's very unfortunate they are fining a retailer for someone stealing their property."
'Mean spirited' laws raise concern about unhoused population
In addition to targeting retailers, some locales have sought to penalize the people taking the carts, raising concerns about the impact on vulnerable populations.
Those ordinances aren't new: former Governor of New York Andrew Cuomo signed such a bill into the law in 1988,according to the Associated Press, authorizing fines of up to $100 for people who took shopping carts at the time. But city councils continue to pass them, including local leaders inOgden, Utahand Federal Way who approved $50 fines for people caught with store carts.
Federal Way Councilmember Hoang V. Tran, who said he was once homeless, called the ordinance "mean spirited" when it was passed in 2022,the Federal Way Mirrorreported.
"I feel like we are targeting a group of vulnerable people in the community," he said. "I feel like this ordinance is intended to drive homeless people out of the city without providing any meaningful help."
The Federal Way Police Department has issued 450 tickets since the ordinance took effect, but it's not clear how many of those tickets were issued to unhoused people because the department doesn't track that information, according to spokesperson Kyle Buchanan.
"Since the ordinance went into effect we have seen a drastic decrease in the number of shopping carts left around the city," Buchanan said. "I rarely see them in public anymore when driving around."
Some officials have tried to mitigate the impact on the homeless population before a new shopping cart-related ordinance went into effect.
The police departmentin Las Cruces, New Mexicoheld shopping cart collection drives, allowing anyone in possession of a cart to return it free of consequences, and offeredlimited spacefor unhoused people to temporarily store belongings they might have previously kept in shopping carts.
More than 130 carts were collectedat the drives and local businesses helped community members replace their carts with luggage or rolling carts that were purchased with donated funds.
In Las Cruces, the punishment for cart theft can be stiff. Anyone who takes or abandons a shopping cart can be convicted of a petty misdemeanor. In lieu of jail time a judge may order the perpetrator to perform community service, which could include receiving counseling, treatment for substance use disorders or mental health issues.
But given that theft is already illegal, lawmakers who want to address the cart problem should focus more onthe underlying issuesthat lead people to keep their belongings in shopping carts, said Jesse Rabinowitz, communications and campaign director at the National Homelessness Law Center.
"This is another way that people experiencing homelessness, who are primarily Black and Brown, are going to be arrested, ticketed, locked up and further disconnected from the housing and supports they need," said Rabinowitz. "Whether intentionally or not, these laws will have disproportionate impact against folks who are just trying to survive and sleep outside."
Contributing: Jason Groves, Las Cruces Sun-News; Taylor Seely, Helen Rummel, and Shawn Raymundo, Arizona Republic
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY:Laws across the nation promise a shopping cart crackdown