Lakewood council introduces ordinance requiring retail shopping cart identification, retention and retrieval

The Lakewood City Council on the council’s meeting introduced Ordinance No. 2025-1, a proposal that would require commercial businesses with five or more shopping carts to implement cart identification, retention and retrieval programs and declare abandoned carts a public nuisance, council members voted unanimously to introduce the measure.

The ordinance is intended to reduce cart theft and abandonment, address traffic and pedestrian safety concerns, and remove visual blight from neighborhoods. Acting Director Patrick McGuckian told the council that staff surveyed Lakewood’s commercial community and found roughly 37 retail stores with about 3,550 carts and six commercial laundries with about 50 carts—about 3,600 carts in total that would be subject to the new rules.

Under the ordinance as…