Raleigh, N.C. — Abandoned shopping carts are popping up in neighborhoods across Raleigh, prompting one City Council member to call for a crackdown.
A WRAL News team found carts in side yards, on downtown streets and flipped over near Dumpsters far away from any grocery store.
Councilman Thomas Crowder calls abandoned carts a nuisance, and he has put the issue before a City Council committee, which will begin looking at possible solutions next Tuesday.
"It's becoming a huge problem throughout the city," Crowder said. "It becomes a public nuisance. It's run down these neighborhoods further, and it makes it harder to rejuvenate (them)."
Raleigh resident Robert Brown agrees. He often finds carts from a grocery store up the street on Lake Wheeler Road in his front yard.
"It just looks ridiculous," Brown said. "You don't want anyone to think you're dirty and you live in a dirty neighborhood because that's exactly how it looks with a whole bunch of shopping carts everywhere."
Officials could hold stores or customers responsible for carts taken off store property. They also could require businesses to install a wheel locking system that would kick in when the cart is at the edge of the parking lot.
Developer Craig Ralph installed such a system at a shopping center he owns on Martin Luther King Boulevard after neighbors expressed concern.
"It's a social obligation we feel we have to the community," Ralph said. "We don’t want the presence we have in the neighborhood to be an inconvenience to the neighbors.”
A Food Lion on Western Boulevard also has a locking system for cart wheels, but Tim Shipman, the director of loss prevention for the supermarket chain said it would cost too much to install it at all Food Lion stores.
The wheel-locking system costs about $20,000.
Durham officials also are debating who should have to pay to corral wayward shopping carts.
More than 1,000 abandoned carts are collected in Durham each year, and officials are looking at the idea of charging stores if city workers have to return carts to the stores. Some council members said they don't want to penalize stores for something they can't control.
Raleigh Hopes to Corral Abandoned Shopping Carts
- Reporter: Melissa Buscher
- Photographer: Courtney Davis
- Web Editor: Matthew Burns
Copyright 2009 by Capitol Broadcasting Company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
20 Comments
-
- Volunteers rise early to feed needy
Updated at 12:23 p.m. | Slideshow - Touched by girl's death, Shaq pays for funeral
Updated at 10:10 a.m. |
- Furry listener encourages young readers
Posted at 8:43 a.m. |
- E-mail archive for N.C. employees moving forward
Updated at 6:47 a.m. - N.C. Christmas tree crop offers plenty of options
Updated at 6:46 a.m.
- Volunteers rise early to feed needy
- Most Viewed Slideshows
- Grocery store keeps its family appeal for decades
Posted Nov. 25 7:49 p.m. - Pet Photos | November 23 - November 29, 2009
Updated at 11:55 a.m. - Small plane crashes in Chatham County
Updated Nov. 25 9:12 p.m.
- Grocery store keeps its family appeal for decades
Photo Spotlight
-
Bands, marchers in holiday paradeChoose your group to watch their performance in the 2009 WRAL-TV Raleigh Christmas Parade.
-
Web only: Complete 2009 WRAL-TV Raleigh Christmas ParadeWatch the parade in its entirety from the comfort of your computer any time.
-
Search for missing IRS refundsThe Internal Revenue Service released the names this week of more than 100,000 taxpayers who have not received their 2009 income tax refund.
-
North Carolina unemployment ratesView an interactive map with county unemployment numbers.
-
A year of N.C. Drought MapsView a time lapse animation of drought conditions during the last year.











STORIES
VIDEOS
SLIDESHOWS


Welcome to GOLO, where WRAL.com visitors can comment on stories and create profile pages, blogs and photo galleries.
You must be a registered WRAL.com user to use these tools. Click here to register or log in.