Audio By Carbonatix
No council committee meetings this week — can’t imagine why. But the council will meet Wednesday for its regularly scheduled briefing, during which they’ll take up a plan to deal with abandoned shopping carts, which is already addressed in the Dallas City Code — but, it would seem, not well enough, per some council members’ request in November to strengthen the ordinance. As evidenced by the video on the other side, it would seem the problem’s particularly bad in the Vickery Meadows Improvement District, where a cart-collection program’s seen the number of stranded baskets jump from 1,500 in ’08 to around 2,000 last year.
City staff’s been looking at how other cities’ ordinances deal with the issue — including tagging the carts with respective stores’ colors and graphics, giving retailers a deadline to collect their carts and making them register ’em with the city at a price. Also: Some cities collect the carts and charge the stores to get them back. Pilot program begins March 1; recommendations to council will be made in October.
