It is frustrating to see shopping carts scattered throughout the city.

It certainly doesn’t contribute to the aesthetic the city is trying to create for visitors, so we can understand the frustration among some city residents and City Council members as carts are seen abandoned throughout the city.

Theft of shopping carts hurts stores’ bottom lines given carts can cost hundreds of dollars each. Some stores have already stopped replacing carts quickly, which means shoppers can’t get carts when they go to shop because so many have been stolen. People are already hitting stores where it hurts by stealing carts, and the council shouldn’t further hit a struggling retail sector with fines.

Fining stores doesn’t seem like the right answer, because shoppers who have done nothing wrong will end up paying the fine in the form of higher prices. That’s especially tone deaf during a time when inflation is already hitting people’s wallets. The cost of stolen carts is also coming out of consumers’ wallets in the form of higher prices, so in our opinion the best thing the city can do is work with stores to prevent theft.

Stores already know the solution to the problem – carts with wheels that lock when they leave a store’s property or carts that require a deposit before they can be used. If the city wants to help push stores toward that outcome, that would make some sense. The council could consider an anti-theft ordinance that places the punishment on those found with stolen shopping carts – though tasking the Jamestown Police Department with writing tickets for stolen shopping carts is a fool’s errand for a department that has bigger problems to police than eyesore shopping carts. Code officers could fine the occupants of homes where abandoned shopping carts are found and make part of the resolution of the case the return of the shopping cart to the retailer.

But we’d caution council members to be careful if they want to consider levying fines on stores for stolen, abandoned carts as some municipalities around the country have done. One common refrain we all hear is the lack of shopping options in the Jamestown area. If council members think it’s hard attracting retailers inside the city limits now, it will get harder if the city starts fining stores for stolen shopping carts. Doing so will just make the town of Ellicott look even better to retailers than it has for the past 60 years.