Councillor McKenna Wants Resolution to Shopping Carts Problem in City

At its Sept. 27 meeting the Revere City Council unanimously approved Ward 1 Councillor Joanne McKenna’s motion that Mayor Brian Arrigo request that a representative from each of the three stores (Stop & Shop, Target, and Big Lots) be called upon to address the issue of customers leaving shopping carts in areas throughout the city and the carts not being returned to the stores in timely fashion.

McKenna noted that the City of Revere has collected more than 150 abandoned shopping carts from Stop & Shop (Furlong Drive), Target, and Big Lots in the city during the past two months.

McKenna said there is currently an ordinance that allows the City of Revere to issue a $25 fine (per cart) to the store, but the city does not have a place to store the carts.

“So what the city’s been doing is working overtime and taking the shopping carts and putting them back in the stores,” said McKenna. “What good is this? It’s not good.”

The councillor asked for representatives from the three stores to “come up with some solution.”

McKenna suggested that the stores hire a person to pick up the abandoned shopping carts by truck, “but they don’t do that anymore.”

“It’s littering our city and we can’t do anything about it,” said McKenna. “And we can’t do anything about, because we don’t have any place to store the carts.”

Councillor-at-Large Steven Morabito, who used to work in a supervisory position at Johnny’s Supermarket, said, “customers would take their carts outside the parking lot, and they would end up in all parts of Revere.”

Morabito added, “This is a public safety issue. If we have one night of high winds, these carts are going to go right into someone’s car, cause a major accident, and maybe even cost someone’s life. I say we escalate this and vote on this to get this moving forward. We should raise the rates and hold the corporate supermarkets accountable.”

Councillor-at-Large Jessica Giannino said she supported McKenna’s motion. Giannino suggested that the stores be called upon to install a brake system for shopping carts so the carts could not be taken from the store parking lots.

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