Denver has few options to police abandoned shopping carts

By David Heitz / NewsBreak Denver

(Denver, Colo.) Everywhere you look in Denver, you see shopping carts.

They sit along the freeway’s edge. Others are parked on the South Platte River trail and wedged in the brush along the bluffs.

People leave shopping carts in city parks and even park them in the middle of the sidewalk. The carts often overflow with garbage. Usually, they belong to a person experiencing homelessness.

So, what can the city do? Apparently, not much.

Carts left along Platte River

Leaving carts in the public right of way violates the law. It’s also illegal to abandon carts on the sidewalk.

People who leave carts by the Platte River in the brush or other nooks and crannies violate the city’s dumping laws.

But when the city responds to complaints about abandoned carts, it’s almost impossible to determine who left them, according to an official with the city’s Department of Transportation and infrastructure, or DOTI.

At the city’s so-called “cleanups” of homeless encampments, displaced campers often load their carts with whatever they can salvage and push them down the road.

DOTI disposes of carts

“If there is an abandoned cart with items in it at a cleanup event, we will store any personal items contained in the cart that do not pose a health and safety risk and dispose of the cart,” said Vanessa Lacayo, DOTI marketing and communications specialist.

Sometimes people will call 311 to report abandoned carts. “If DOTI gets a 311 call about a cart somewhere with trash in it, that is in the public right of way, our team would check it out and see if it belongs to anyone,” Lacayo said.

If DOTI can locate the owner, that person takes care of the items. If not, DOTI stores items that don’t pose a health or safety risk and dispose of the cart.

Retailers stay mum

Supermarkets and mass retailers like King Sooper’s and Wal-Mart seem somewhat resigned to the cart thefts. Neither company responded to requests for comment about stolen carts.

Large companies like Wal-Mart and King Sooper’s try to secure their carts with an invisible fence around their parking lots. The wheels lock up when someone tries to leave the lot.

But cart thieves at the Wal-Mart on Smith Road in Central Park discovered a weak spot in the fence. The carts litter the median on Quebec Avenue. Dozens sit in the parking lot of Fusion Apartments, 3737 Quebec. The building is across the street from Quebec Square shopping center, where Wal-Mart is an anchor tenant.

Carts cost at least $100 each

Commercial shopping carts cost at least $100 new, according to multiple sites online that sell them. According to Good L. Corp., some stores employ a cart retrieval service to comb neighborhoods looking for wayward carts. It’s a solution used by medium-sized companies.

Back in 2017, a hardware store in Denver had a problem with cart theft. The store’s owners would canvass the neighborhood looking for carts.

“If you figure the average hardware store makes 3 to 4 percent net profit, we have to sell thousands of dollars of stuff to make up $170 in lost carts,” Andy Carlson told KDVR. Carlson owns Ace Hardware at Broadway and Alameda.

CBS4 at that time tested the invisible fences at two locations. The wheels didn’t lock at the Target in Glendale, and a reporter pushed the cart off the lot. But the invisible fence at a King Sooper’s caused the cart’s wheels to lock up at the edge of the lot.

Anti-theft technology not foolproof

Good L Corp., which sells carts, admits invisible fence technology is expensive and not foolproof. Good L. Corp. said Aldi uses its own system. “The shopping chain Aldi uses an efficient system where customers must unlock carts by spending money in the form of quarters,” the company reports on its blog. “Once carts are returned to the cart area and locked back in place, the coin used to unlock the cart is returned to the customer. While this is not a foolproof theft prevention method, it does reduce the amount of time store employees must spend retrieving carts.”

While discarded carts filled with trash are nothing new in Denver, it’s a problem that appears to be getting worse. Carts have made long trips from parking lots to homeless encampments across town.

As homeless encampments spread throughout the city, so do the stolen carts. People experiencing homelessness use the carts to leave an encampment during a sweep.

Call 311 to report a stolen or abandoned cart.

Originally published at https://original.newsbreak.com.