The City of Santa Ana’s N.I.C.E. (Neighborhood Improvement/Code Enforcement) Committee is meeting on Monday, Monday, July 31, 5:30 p.m. at the city hall Ross annex, first floor training room (1602), to discuss concerns about shopping carts in Santa Ana neighborhoods. Shopping cart containment ordinance is the only item on the agenda.
Those who wish to attend this meeting are advised to be on time, as city staff will be at the city hall main entrance to provide entry, but they will not stay at the door more than 10 – 15 minutes.
If there is little or no public concerns shared with this committee, it will die and not be presented to council for a vote, according to a Santa Ana neighborhood leader.
Parking will be validated, so bring your ticket with you to the meeting.
NICE Committee council members include Lisa Bist, Alberta Christy and Carlos “Forest Gump” Bustamante.
Does anybody know why this council comittee has restricted attendance times? Is this not governed by the Brown act?Are minutes available?Art Lomeli
Art, I don’t think it is restricted attendance times, as much as it is after work hours and the front door staff would be going home.
There is a law already:
The unauthorized removal of a shopping cart from a store parking lot is a violation of State law. (California Business and Professions Code, Section 22435).
The only thing a city code could deal with is non-California Grocers Association members carts.
Namely the car-less and homeless.
Is the city going to make the large apts and condo’s owners make/build a place for cart storage – awaiting for pick-up?
I think the best thing would be to require enough box-boys (whatever you call them) at each store to haul the cart out to a car or home and then return to the store with the cart. that takes care of the abandon cart problem and the high rate of unemployment with high-school youth and other unskilled labor.
Art-
Ah, access and accessibility. Good question.
sac,You think a better time or location could be choosen to accomodate traffic or running late.Public meetings have to be accesible. Scheduling when door monitors go home is irrational.Besides the law ,I believe there are aggreements with grocery stores to have a service to collect their shopping carts.The City also funds another collection service. I don’t understand the difficulty in having this collection issue under control.The customers that take the carts live within walking distance, so the area to patrol is small. Also the customers take the carts because the stores make it easy for them to do so. Customers will find an alternative way to get their groceries home if this is controlled.They are resourcefull. The grocery stores affected by this have security personell in their parking lots . Why not instruct them to stop carts from leaving the parking lot. I don’t understand why this issue gets so complicated unless it has to do with politics. Art Lomeli
Since the people who take them are already violating the law, why do we need another law? Try enforcing the present law. I just got a $109 ticket for crossing the street too slowly, so how about a citation or two to the cart theives?
I’m sure there must be a charity that will give a hand cart to people who insist of stealing shopping carts, but if they get away with stealing them, they will not change their behavior. Also, once the carts are out, other people reuse them to sell fruit, for instance, and that’s when the widespread blight and cost to consumers arises.
I just got back from the very crowded NICE meeting.
After much banter about alot of nothing, Alberta Christy had the courage and wisdom to say it.
Without ENFORCEMENT there is no point in making another toothless ordinance.
At that point, the crowd of about 40 broke into applause.
She gets it.
Why should the city spend $ 84,000
every year picking up carts?
Why should we reward lawbreakers who choose to steal a cart and then dump it on our streets?
Enforcement will also lead to less street vendors dealing corn, or recycling people picking through trash cans.
Who is the bad guy? The stores who own them? The auto-less mothers bringing food home?
The state of California for making crappy laws? The cities for not enforcing laws on the books?
Maybe there should be a utility food tax, like a CRV on each market bill over a set dollar amount to cover half the costs, and being a property value blight item, A value added tax to all real property in the covered area.
I think the city is misinterpreting the state law on carts. All carts can be picked up and returned at sight. The 72 hours, the written notice, and the rest, is for destruction of the carts. If the city is not going to destroy the stores property then the 72 hours should not apply.
Thomas , was the outcome of the NICE meeting an agreement to enforce the existing ordinance and the agreements with the grocery stores.The grocery store owners, seems to me, don’t consider these customers as thieves.If they thought they were getting robbed they would do a better job in protecting their property.I think the grocery stores consider the retrieval service a cost of doing business.More pressure should be placed on this end rather than concentrating entirely on the customers that have this encouraged behavior.I am not sure these customers understand they are breaking the law if the cart owners don’t confront them about it.Not correcting this isuue produces a pebble in the shoe of the cart offender’s neighbors and hurts community relations.Art Lomeli
WHOMEVER COSTA MESA PATRIOT IS NEEDS TO CHECK THEIR FACTS. IN THEIR COMMENT THEY MENTIONED THAT I (MIKE SCHEAFER, NOTE THE SPELLING) APPROVED MARTIN MILLARD TO A CITY COUNCIL COMMITTEE POST WHEN I WAS ON COUNCIL. I DO NOT CONSIDER THIS MAN TO BE AN ASSET TO COSTA MESA AND WOULD NOT HAVE HAD HIM ON. HE WAS IN THE POSITION WHEN I WAS APPOINTED TO COUNCIL IN MAY OF 2003. LOOKS LIKE A CAMPAIGN SMEAR TO ME.