Things are abandoned all over

You’re kidding, right? A problem with abandoned shopping carts? How

many snaps do you want from my personal “Shopping Cart Photo” album?

Would you like to post a reporter on my front lawn for about a week?

You’d have a book, a book my dears. I suggest black and white photos.

You’ll win an award of some sort, if not a Pulitzer for the

juxtapositions of traffic/pedestrians/ life-threatening situations

and the plain-old-trashy-mind-boggling amount and volume of shopping

carts that are deposited/used/ taken and yes, even abandoned on the

properties of Costa Mesa residents.

Oh my, who comes up with these questions?

You all aren’t from around these parts are ya?

KATHLEEN ERIC

Costa Mesa

I’m calling in regards to the shopping cart issue within the city

of Costa Mesa. I definitely think that we have a shopping cart

problem.

You see them in the alleys, you see them in front of homes all

over town and I think it’s something that we should have instituted a

long time ago, which requires the businesses to have one of those

quarter slots on them so that when you return the carts to the

parking lot you get your quarter back. You stick a quarter in to get

it when you return it you get your quarter back.

If anything the kids of the town will be out there picking up the

shopping carts and we wont have a problem with the code enforcement.

It’s ridicules that the city has to do this. If we are going to spend

the money we should institute that on the shopping carts and invest

in the shopping cart situation that would allow people to return the

carts and to get the quarter. I think they have a product out there

that will actually lock the wheels on the carts if they go to leave

the area.

But I have seen this quarter thing done down at the desert and

other parts of the country and it works very well. You stick a

quarter in you get the cart. You return the cart back to the shopping

cart dispenser in the parking lot you get your quarter back so it

didn’t cost you anything to borrow the cart. So I think it’s time

that the city gets with technology and quit being the follower of

everybody in the country and start being the leader here.

It’s time we get some new ideas out there in the public and allow

businesses in the city to run it properly and get these shopping

carts off the streets.

LARRY WEICHMAN

Costa Mesa

I am calling in regards to the shopping cart problem. I don’t

think that this is a law enforcement problem. I think that the police

have enough to do. I do believe that it is a store problem and the

stores should be doing this not the police department.

In New Jersey the shopping carts are outside, however you need a

quarter to get a shopping cart and then you get your quarter back

when you return your shopping cart to the rack just like a luggage

cart in an airport. Also stores in New Jersey I’m using New Jersey as

an example because they do have this problem. They also have poles on

the shopping cart that do not allow them to leave the store. People

have to take their things out of the shopping carts before they leave

the stores. The stores in this area have all remolded; they used to

have the shopping carts in side the stores. I believe now that they

have them outside the stores it’s very easy for people to take the

carts outside when the carts are outside before they were inside the

stores and I don’t think they were as easy being accessible. I think

the stores needed the extra space to make an extra dollar. Now they

are losing their extra dollar by having people take their carts.

SANDRA BASNACIYEN

Corona del Mar