Subject: ABANDONED CART ORDINANCE
RECOMMENDATION
It is recommended that the City Council:
1.
Approve an ordinance amending Title 9 to add a new Chapter regarding the prevention of unauthorized removal of shopping carts from retail/commercial premises and facilitate the retrieval of abandoned carts on public property.
2.
Authorize the creation of Code Enforcement Inspector and Senior Office Specialist positions in the Planning, Building and Code Enforcement Department and a Maintenance Worker II position in Streets and Traffic.
3.
Approve the outreach and implementation plan outlined in this report.
On June 19, 2000, the City Council approved three staff recommendations related to the issue of abandoned shopping carts:
1.
That an ordinance be adopted that would require owners to submit, on an annual basis, a plan to retain carts on their premises and to retrieve abandoned carts within 24 hours;
2.
Implementation of a public outreach plan to raise public awareness and community pride in a clean city; and
3.
Pursue on-going communication with local retailers to develop collaborative solutions to the problem of abandoned carts.
The purpose of this memorandum is to transmit the proposed ordinance to the City Council and to provide additional information regarding the public outreach plan.
I - Ordinance overview
The proposed Ordinance maintains primary responsibility for managing cart service with the owner of the cart and sets requirements for the prompt retrieval of carts that may be taken off-site. The Ordinance provides owners with discretion in determining their preferred method of prevention; however, it also provides for the escalation of sanctions applied in those instances where the owner’s plan is demonstrated to be ineffective. In this way, the City hopes to establish a foundation with the retail industry to ensure that the program is responsive to the needs of the community for a clean and safe environment.
Abandoned Cart Prevention Plan
Under the proposed Ordinance, retail or other commercial uses providing cart service will be required to submit an Abandoned Cart Prevention Plan to the City of San Jose annually. This Plan shall set forth a program to ensure that carts are not removed from their premises and a retrieval plan if they are removed. Each business owner shall be required to file an initial plan at the beginning of the program and pay a plan review fee. A business may request an exemption from the annual plan requirement if it is able to demonstrate to the satisfaction of the City the ability to prevent carts from leaving the site and no carts are found abandoned after the exemption is granted. If the best management plan or physical devices to prevent cart removal are found to be ineffective, however, the exemption may be revoked and the plan requirement with corresponding fee requirement reinstated. Each Abandoned Cart Prevention Plan shall, at a minimum, contain the following components:
·
The name of the business;
·
An inventory of carts;
·
The installation of cart signage;
·
The customer and community outreach and notification plan;
·
Identification of best management plan or physical devices preventing loss;
·
Identification of authorized agent for retrieval including company information;
·
Employee training plan on Abandoned Cart Prevention Plan;
·
The identification of business address contact information, the names of persons responsible for implementing the plan and information on who and how to contact the appropriate individuals to resolve any plan issues or violations.
Plans that are incomplete will be rejected and, if not resubmitted with the required information in a timely manner, be subject to Administrative Remedies for failure to comply. Failure to retrieve carts within the specified 24-hour period shall constitute a violation of the plan. According to staff estimates, there are approximately 4,443 businesses that will be required to submit an initial Abandoned Cart Prevention Plan. Each plan will require a staff review to ensure that it is complete and adequate. In addition, each location requesting an exemption will require a code inspection to ensure the management practices or devices proposed to keep the carts on site are effective prior to the exemption being granted. It is staff’s recommendation that the initial plan review fee be set at $135 for businesses with 26 to 100 carts and $150 for businesses with more than 100 carts. For the first year only, this fee will include $10 to fund Citywide outreach. The fee will decrease by $10 in subsequent years. Businesses with 25 or fewer carts would be exempt from the plan requirement.At this level, the program will be 99 percent cost recovery. It is recommended that Solid Waste Funds be used to fund the balance of the program. City staff will be required to retrieve and dispose of any carts that are unmarked or for which the owner cannot be identified. Given that the majority of these carts would end-up in the landfill or become debris and clutter on public streets, use of these funds is considered to be appropriate. Attachment A provides a summary of the projected cost and revenue projections for the program.
The City is divided into five Code Enforcement Service Areas which are geographically arranged and include one or more Council Districts. In order to maximize staff resources and facilitate a more concentrated outreach effort, it is recommended that implementation of the Abandoned Cart Prevention Ordinance be staggered to cover one Code Enforcement Service Area each month for five months—with implementation based on the highest to lowest concentrations of abandoned carts. The implementation process will contain five elements:
1.
General cart sweeps to remove unmarked carts
2.
Industry training
3.
Community outreach & education
4.
Plan review
5.
Non-compliance enforcement
Cart Sweeps
To kick off the Program, the Department of Streets and Traffic will perform a shopping cart sweep in each area to remove and dispose of abandoned, unmarked shopping carts on public property. These carts constitute approximately 40 percent of the carts found abandoned based on a six-month study conducted by the City Manager’s Office. Industry TrainingCode Enforcement, in partnership with the Northern California Grocers Association, will conduct a training session in each service area related to the completion and implementation of an effective cart retrieval plan. These sessions will provide information on the Ordinance provisions as well as a summary of best practice information from other jurisdictions with respect to retrieval options. The Grocers’ Association has committed their resources to this effort and is willing to facilitate outreach to their members to encourage their participation.
The proposed plan review fee includes expenses to conduct an education and outreach plan for both the community and the industry on the provisions of the Abandoned Shopping Cart Ordinance. Funds will be used to develop outreach materials such as posters, brochures, and reporting contact informational magnets. In addition, public service announcements will be developed and the City’s cable and internet sites will be utilized to disseminate information to the community. Additional efforts will include inserts into utility bills and other media in a plan to be further developed in coordination with the City Manager’s outreach committee. The goal of the outreach plan will be create greater community pride in maintaining a clean, safe city.
The customer outreach will be the responsibility of the individual store owners and shall be a required part of their Abandoned Cart Prevention Plan. This may include, but would not be limited to: signage on carts, stores, shopping bags or other outreach designed to advise their customers that they may not remove the shopping carts from the business premise. The Grocer’s Association has agreed to make available at cost foldable carts for the first year of the program. It is hoped that seniors and customers without transportation will take advantage of this resource and refrain from illegally removing the stores’ shopping carts. Targeted outreach will be conducted to advise the senior community of this resource.
It is anticipated that the Ordinance will go into effect in January 2001. It is recommended that the submission of prevention plans be staggered between the months of February, 2001 through June, 2001. This will allow sufficient time for the proposed roll-out of educational and outreach activities by service area as well as time for City staff to retrieve and dispose of all unmarked carts.
Once plans have been reviewed and approved by City staff, Code Enforcement will make periodic sweeps of each service area to investigate issues of non-compliance. As part of the public outreach campaign, residents will be encouraged to call the City to report abandoned carts.
Implementation of this project will require additional staff resources in the Code Enforcement Division and the Department of Streets and Traffic. A Code Enforcement Inspector II will review plans, prepare reports, conduct site inspections, and issue administrative citations, as necessary. A Senior Office Specialist will provide clerical support to the Inspector (prepare and send notices, data entry) and assist existing accounting staff with payment processing. The proposed Maintenance Worker II would remove and dispose of abandoned, unmarked shopping carts on public property.
The FY 2000-01 costs to add the Code Enforcement Inspector II, Senior Office Specialist, and Maintenance Worker II positions is approximately $192,890. This includes one-time, non-personal costs to purchase one sedan for the Inspector, one truck with lift gate and signboard for the Maintenance Worker, and communication equipment that would be installed in the vehicles. On-going costs would be approximately $203,150. The Plan Review fee revenue would offset the Inspector and Senior Office Specialist position costs. Solid Waste Enforcement fee revenue would offset the costs of the Maintenance Worker position.
The required appropriations memorandum is being sent to Council under separate cover.
This memorandum has been coordinated with the Department of Streets and Traffic, the City Attorney’s Office and the City Manager’s Office.
Planning, Building and Code Enforcement
|
Recommendation