I noticed a dramatic increase in shopping carts in my neighborhood and around Rockville since the implementation of the the 5 cent shopping bag fee.

The MVF and the residents of Montgomery Village thank Delegate Reznik and Senator King for their support in this effort.

Repealing a law? Perish the thought! Our legislature will likely pass a new law to amend a stupid law to make it a little less stupid. In this era of big government, more laws are always preferable to fewer ones.

They should enact a law that the stores that own the carts be required to come and retrieve them when they are abandoned in the neighborhoods around the store. Try getting Target to come for their carts. It won't happen. Not only are the carts unsightly, but they create a hazard to vehicles and pedestrians alike.

I really don't believe raising the fine will make a difference. How about if the stores pay someone to stand out in the parking lots to watch for cart thieves?

why isn't a crime of theft like anything else taken without permission

James, I'm pretty sure that if I take your car for a joy-ride and leave it on the side of the road for you to retrieve, the police are going to charge me with more than a $25 fine, and won't listen to my protestations that I meant neither to permanently deprive you of ownership nor to personally gain.

There's a simple solution to the whole problem here and that is to revert back to the stores maintaining carts in a closed area at the front of the store. You then use the pick-up lane to load your groceries. No more unsightly cart corrals in the center of the parking area. This could be adopted by local plannning agencies as a use permit requirement if stores are found delinquent in cart management.

Here is a business opportunity for someone who needs a job. Get a pickup truck, a couple of boards to use for a ramp, some rope to tie the carts down, then visit some of the stores (Target, Walmart, Giant, etc.) and estabilsh a contract with them to pick up and return their carts to the store. You should be able to get maybe 10 carts at a time in the back of a pickup truck.

If no one wants that, then here is another option, charge a deposit of $10.00 on all carts. Befoer you can push a cart out of the store, at checkout time, you pay $10.00 and receive your dated cash register receipt. As you leave the store, a store employee checks your receipt to ensure that you paid the deposit. When you bring the cart back to the store, the same employee verifies that you returned the cart and gives you a slip good for your next $10.00 cart deposit.

Sometimes you have to think outside the box to solve problems like these.

Any legislation penalizing shopping cart theft is ineffective unless it is enforced. I suspect that law enforcement agencies in the area will argue that they have much more important crimes to pursue than to chase down the carts. There needs to be a plan in place for actively pursuing these thieves in order for the laws to work. Stop at the intersection of Clubhouse and MV Avenue on any given day, and you can watch the carts leaving the Village Center. A few high profile apprehensions of cart thieves might have more of an impact than any signs posted at the stores. By the way, the proliferation of shopping carts in the neighborhood was a clear sign of the deterioration of the quality of life in Montgomery Village, and one of the reasons I got the heck out of there.

There is a $25 fine, that has not been enforced. How will the $100 fine be enforced better, or is this just to allow the stores to put a different sign that warns of the $100 fine instead of the $25 fine? I like the idea that the stores be fined if they don't come pick them up after they have been notified.

theres a solution to th prolem theres a wheel lock that will lock the back wheels when you take the cart to far frpm the store it can be instaled on most carts for about $30.00 a cart it works on a rado singinal comeing from the store to lock on the wheel intercity stores use them alot rick

Safeway on 33rd St in Baltimore City has the wheel locks and it works. You can take the cart as far as the end of the parking lot and the wheels lock up. Great idea.

A few years ago i remember the shopping carts at the Shopper's in New Carrollton had the wheel locks. I remember one woman trying to take a cart of groceries across the street to the apartment building. She was steadily cursing as she could only push it around in circles at the edge of the parking lot. Decades ago in Chicago, I would pay a $5.00 deposit for a cart and get it back when i returned it.

If you install railings to prohibit carts from leaving the store, you comprimise access to the store with wheelchairs. An ADA compliance issue that store operators struggle with. The cart lock systems cost $40 per cart + about $25K for the electronics