Shopping carts illegally taken from the property of merchants throughout Redding has been an endemic problem for a number of years. Most are found in areas frequented by transients. The Redding Police Department Community Clean-Up Program and Code Enforcement Team have increasingly been seeking to address this issue. Officers from both units have found that the stores with the most carts abandoned throughout the community are the 99 Cent Store, Walmart, Walgreen’s, and Safeway. The Code Enforcement Team met with representatives from Cart Retrieval Corporation last week, to learn more about their work in Redding and to find ways to assist their work. Cart Retrieval Corporation appears to be the only company currently providing this service in Redding.
Redding police officer Mike Thomas and Redding code enforcement officer Gary Brown accompanied a Cart Retrieval Corporation crew throughout much of Redding today, ensuring Cart Retrieval was aware of shopping cart dump sites and assisting them in recovering carts from areas with frequent transient camps. Their crew will only recover a cart if it is not in someone’s possession. Most of the shopping carts located today were from stores not contracting with Cart Retrieval Corporation, so they could not be recovered.
Officers found that only nine stores in Redding use Cart Retrieval Corporation to recover shopping carts:
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Safeway
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Winco
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Food Maxx
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CVS
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BevMo!
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Raley’s
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Bed, Bath & Beyond
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Dollar Tree
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Rite Aid
Cart Retrieval Corporation encourages anyone who sees an abandoned shopping cart from one of the above stores to call Cart Retrieval Corporation at 800-252-4613 and report its location. Officers learned the 99 Cent Store in Redding might begin using the services of Cart Retrieval Corporation.
