On Monday, Gilroy City Council voted 5-1-1 to require businesses to adopt better safeguards to prevent customers from strolling off a store's property with shopping carts. The policy comes at the behest of Gilroy's street maintenance workers, who find themselves retrieving abandoned carts several times a day from alleys, front lawns, sidewalks and vacant lots.

"It's going to save the city time and effort of having to go around and collect them with there being some punitive liability (for businesses)," said Councilman Russ Valiquette. "The technology's there to put those little brakes on (carts). You find the shopping carts in parks, in creek beds - all over the place. You'd think that the store owners would be willing to invest a little bit of money to keep the carts on their property, instead of buying new shopping carts."

The regulation requires all businesses that use shopping carts to submit an "abandoned cart prevention plan" to the city. Solutions could range from hiring parking lot attendants to installing devices that prevent carts from leaving a store.

The latter, known as Electronic Theft Deterrent Systems, are an increasingly popular option locally. The ETDS is more commonly known as a "boot" and relies on a radio-frequency-controlled wheel lock that triggers when a cart strays too far from a store.

Safeway was among the first to adopt such a device, said Gilroy Operations Manager Carla Ruigh, and city officials required the "boot" as a condition of approval for the Wal-Mart Supercenter off Highway 152.

Under the ordinance, all new businesses will be required to have ETDS and all existing businesses that perform $100,000-plus in renovations must adopt the anti-theft device.

Businesses that don't adopt ETDS will be on a short leash - only once in a three-month period will the city allow them to leave an abandoned cart lying around on public property for longer than 24 hours. If abandoned carts are found more than once in a three-month period, the business must adopt the ETDS.

Other businesses have clamped down on theft without the device. Nob Hill Foods on First Street has no safety devices, but its workers escort customers to their cars and return with the grocery carts. The store also does a respectable job of hunting carts down when they make it off site, Ruigh said

The 99 Cents Only Store on 10th Street has proven a bigger problem, she said.

The store's bright purple carts have no safety devices and routinely crop up blocks or even miles from the store. About 20 carts vanish each month from the store, according to an assistant manger.

Premier Carts Inc., a Kansas company, sells shopping carts online for $108 each. At those prices, the 99 Cent Store in Gilroy is losing more than $2,000 a month.

If council gives final approval to the ordinance later this month, it will take effect May 16. In the preliminary vote taken Monday, Councilman Roland Velasco was absent and Councilman Craig Gartman voted against the measure, arguing that it amounts to "punishing businesses for people stealing from them."

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