City amends shopping‑cart rules, requires annual vendor plans and adopts inspection fee

Desert Hot Springs on May 6 approved an amendment to municipal shopping‑cart regulations to curb cart abandonment and the blight and safety hazards it causes, and adopted a modest fee to cover inspection and administration costs.

Code Compliance Supervisor Tyler Messer told council that since 2022 the city has required shopping‑cart containment plans and that staff now sees recurring problems when vendors change retrieval contractors or fail to maintain disabling devices. Messer said the ordinance amendment would require annual containment plan renewals, annual on‑site inspections, expand the cart definition to include merchandise carts, allow staff to notify owners by email/phone/text and require vendors to update plan information within 10 business days. State law requires the city to impound carts and hold them for 30 days; the city can issue a citation if the vendor has not retrieved the cart by the fourth day following impoundment.

Some public commenters opposed penalties that could be charged to retailers, arguing carts are often taken by people without cars. Staff and council noted the change targets vendor responsibility for containment and retrieval contracts; council members cited aesthetic and safety benefits and recent state legislation that would aid local returns and cost recovery.

Council adopted the ordinance at first reading unanimously and approved a user fee of $358 per shopping‑cart containment plan (estimated to generate roughly $4,296 annually based on 12 plans per year) to cover inspection and monitoring costs.