Speaking Of Theft - Taking Shopping Carts Home? Is This Legal?

[grinningghost]

Mom was in the store, I was waiting in the lot. Saw a woman walk her shopping cart right across the street to her apartment complex.

She only had one bag in it, so it wasn't like she had a whole big load. She also RAN with the cart across the street, so she wasn't seriously disabled.

I saw her grab her bag out of the cart, then head into her apartment. She never came back out and walked it back. It just sat there at least as long as I was waiting.

Is this legal? Is it frowned upon? I thought it was pretty tacky.

 

[RitaZ.]

You know, I think it's considered stealing once you remove the cart off their property. I remember hearing something about that.

 

[grinningghost]

You know, I think it's considered stealing once you remove the cart off their property. I remember hearing something about that.

It probably should be. I was pretty amazed at how nonchalantly she just mosied away with it. I would have been looking over my shoulder and all paranoid. This woman seemed as if she did this all the time.

 

[RitaZ.]

It probably should be. I was pretty amazed at how nonchalantly she just mosied away with it. I would have been looking over my shoulder and all paranoid. This woman seemed as if she did this all the time.

Yeah, I've seen people do that before.

 

[cardaway]

We lived in an apartment complex built above a Safeway store in West Seattle for a year. Many people would take carts up the elevator and leave them in the courtyard at the apartment level.

People in surrounding apartment complexes would take them across the street as well.

I would usually take a few from the courtyard on my way down. If I didn't sometime there wouldn't be a cart for me to use in the store.

 

[cinmell]

The supermarkets I go to have signs on the automatic doors asking patrons to please not remore carts/carriages from store property.

 

[Rafiki Rafiki Rafiki]

Geesh, if I knew they were free, I would have taken one home myself!

 

[grinningghost]

Geesh, if I knew they were free, I would have taken one home myself!

Sure! If you have small kids, make sure to grab one of those fire truck ones - that'll be a big hit at birthday parties.

 

[ADisneygirl]

No, I'm pretty sure it's illegal here in Fl. to remove them from the grocery store parking lot. Most stores around here have signs saying not to take them.

Now, I got a different story from my past. An apartment building we lived in up in Wappingers Falls, New York was down a private road behind a Grand Union. Everyone who walked down there to the store took the cart back to the apt. They were collected in the service entrance near the elevators and an employee of GU used to come once a day to retrieve them. The store knew and allowed it then.

 

[hlbtimes2]

Its theft. Some of the stores near me now have sensors in them. When they reach the edge of the parking lot the wheels lock.

 

[drcorey]

Mom was in the store, I was waiting in the lot. Saw a woman walk her shopping cart right across the street to her apartment complex.

She only had one bag in it, so it wasn't like she had a whole big load. She also RAN with the cart across the street, so she wasn't seriously disabled.

I saw her grab her bag out of the cart, then head into her apartment. She never came back out and walked it back. It just sat there at least as long as I was waiting.

Is this legal? Is it frowned upon? I thought it was pretty tacky.

It's Stealing!
they are walking into a business, grabing a piece of the stores equipment and walking out with it.
it's just like, walking into a disney restaurant and taking a chair home with you. or borrowing a lamp from your hotel room.

 

[RitaZ.]

Sure! If you have small kids, make sure to grab one of those fire truck ones - that'll be a big hit at birthday parties.

Hey, who needs a bounce house when you can have shopping cart races!

It's interesting that this subject came up... About 3 weeks ago, I saw my next door neighbor's daughter being pushed in a shopping cart, by a friend, on her way home from school. I don't know where the cart came from because Publix isn't within walking distance of our neighborhood. Anyway, the cart sat on their lawn for about a week, which complimented their Christmas lights very nicely. When we got home on Saturday, we noticed that the shopping cart was gone , but the brightly colored lights are still decorating their roofline. I hate looking at their trashy house!

 

[tinatark]

Yep - it's stealing. The grocery store near me was close to some housing development apartments - around the middle of the month, a person hired by the grocery store would go over there (and the other streets nearby) to pick up their carts. The store knew about it, didn't "allow" it - and had to PAY someone to go retrieve their carts!

 

[chris1gill]

Its theft. Some of the stores near me now have sensors in them. When they reach the edge of the parking lot the wheels lock.

We have a store with these sensors on the carts!!!

You will not believe this... but one day last summer we were sitting in our van, preparing to leave when we glance over and see a woman heading quite far down the parking lot with a cart FULL of bags, lots of bags... next thing you know the cart STOPS DEAD....

The woman walks back to the store, gets another cart.... unloads the first cart into the second cart, BAM!!! STOPPED DEAD... She tries a third time, same thing AGAIN!!! STOPPED DEAD... Took three times for this woman to figure this out... it was quite the scene..... she had to call a taxi after that because she had far too many bags to walk home with

And, those carts cost at least 200.00 a piece, so it might even be grand larceny to steal them!

 

[Obi-Wan Pinobi]

Actually some of those carts cost up to $700 each!

This happens a lot in the area where DH Lauri works. It's right on the edge of downtown and on a bus line and people will push carriages from one shopping center to the next, up to 2 miles apart! It's nothing for her to find a PetsMart cart in her lot when the PetsMart is half a mile away.

I give her a hard time because she has 2 Safeway carts she uses in her stockroom. I give her grief for "stealing" the carts. She didn't really. The Safeway had closed down 4 months earlier and the carts were just sitting in the mall lot so she just "adopted" them

 

[powellrj]

No, I'm pretty sure it's illegal here in Fl. to remove them from the grocery store parking lot. Most stores around here have signs saying not to take them.

Now, I got a different story from my past. An apartment building we lived in up in Wappingers Falls, New York was down a private road behind a Grand Union. Everyone who walked down there to the store took the cart back to the apt. They were collected in the service entrance near the elevators and an employee of GU used to come once a day to retrieve them. The store knew and allowed it then.

They may have known about it, but they didn't allow it. DH use to manage a supermarket that had a huge shopping cart theft problem. It amazed me that people honestly thought it was OK to just push them home and then let the store hire someone to pick them up. What made it even worse was that some people would then use them to make BBQ grills out of them. The money DH use to pay to have people bring back the carts came out of his profits, so it affected his end of the year figures. People were really angry when they had to close the store, but shopping cart theft played a big part in it.

 

[TheOtherVillainess]

The supermarkets I go to have signs on the automatic doors asking patrons to please not remore carts/carriages from store property.

They have that plastered all over dept stores at the mall that have their own shopping carts. People would drag them all over the place instead of bringing their own strollers or renting the expensive ones. And then, instead of bringing them back to the store they belonged to, they would leave them wherever. I felt so sorry for the housekeeping staff that had to run all over and recover them.

The only thing that ever made it semi-ok is when people would not return the rented ones to their slots. If you return a rented one to a slot, you get a dollar back. Sometimes I'd drag two or three of those things back just to get the money off them.

TOV

 

[Evil Queen]

My ex neighbors use to bring them home all the time. I guess none of their 4 cars in their driveway would run, so they had to walk to the grocery. I really didn't mind them bringing them home, between groceries and kids, but return it on your next walk over there, but noooooo..........bring home yet another one.

Their kids never believed me when I told them it was illegal and junk like that makes the cost of groceries to go up. Glad they are GONE!!

 

[alliecats]

Not knowing the woman or the area, I don't want to say if she was stealing or not. But my gramma lives in a retirement apt. complex with many other seniors, across the street from a grocery store. They have a small bank of carts from that grocery store, that they keep in the parking garage. The seniors walk them back and forth to the store to do their shopping.
This system was devised and sanctioned by the grocery store for the convenience of the seniors. I would not want anyone on here to see my gramma doing this and just assume she is a thief. Because she's not, and neither is anyone else in her complex. I think this was a very nice gesture for the store to make, and good business.

 

[Kimberle]

There are some Senior apt buildings near a couple of supermarkets out here. The people who live in those buildings are encouraged by the stores to take the cart back to their building. They leave them out front and the store sends somebody to collect them every day or so.

Lots of seniors can't drive. If they could not use the carts, they would have a problem getting groceries.