HomeMy WebLinkAbout5/17/2022 Item 6c, Brooks
Wilbanks, Megan
From:Lea Brooks <
To:E-mail Council Website
Subject:Item 6c, Shopping Cart Ordinance, May 17 agenda
Attachments:Item 6c, Shopping Carts, 5.17.2022.docx
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Please see attached comments. Thank you.
Lea Brooks
1
May 16, 2022
To: Mayor Stewart and Council Members Christianson, Marx, Pease and Shoresman
From: Lea Brooks, San Luis Obispo resident
Re: May 17 agenda, Item 6c: Introduction of Shopping Cart Ordinance
Thank you for the opportunity to comment on th e proposed ordinance requiring the
private management of shopping carts and retrieval of abandoned or unattended
shopping carts from public places. If I don’t attend the City Council meeting, I will watch
the broadcast.
My husband and I regularly pick up trash in and around Mitchell Park, which is our
neighborhood park. We are also part of a group that picks up trash on the City’s
segment of the Bob Jones Trail between South Higuera Street/Prado Road and Los
Osos Valley Road. We often find abandoned shopping carts, typically empty or piled
with what is clearly trash, left on and adjacent to the Bob Jones Trail, and throughout
Mitchell Park.
Not addressed in the staff report is who members of the public should contact when
they find abandoned shopping carts: the City or the businesses directly? Regarding the
Bob Jones Trail, members of our group have pushed or dragged abandoned carts to the
Los Osos Valley Road or South Higuera/Prado access points so it is easier for the
businesses we are able to contact by cell phone to find. (We first empty the trash in the
big dumpster on the trail.) The shopping cart business owners who we are able to
contact and say they may retrieve the carts indicate it will be hours before they do so.
To date, we have not waited for the business owners to retrieve their property so have
no idea if the shopping carts are ever picked up.
I support the ordinance for abandoned shopping carts, but suggest it be revised to
include a clear definition of an unattended cart. An abandoned shopping cart is easy to
identify; an unattended cart not so much.