P.A. grocer shopping for solutions as carts mysteriously disappear

By Nigel Maxwell

While the sight of an abandoned shopping cart can be amusing for passersby, and even has its own social media following, local businesses who incur added costs are not laughing.

Christopher Szeszorak, store manager at Harold’s Family Foods in Prince Albert, said over the past six months, he’s noticed a significant and steady decrease in the number of shopping carts remaining in their cart lobby.

“We are down to 25 carts. We have lost about 75 from our original count. Shopping baskets — about 50 of those are missing as well,” he said.

The cost of a new shopping cart can be over $250 each.

Szeszorak also explained the store is struggling to ensure customers have enough carts and baskets to use while shopping. In an effort to help retrieve some, management recently posted a sign requesting cart sightings on their main reader board overlooking 28th Street East.

“The response to the sign has been interesting and has certainly opened up some discussion about where shopping carts are going and ending up … and for what purpose they may be used for,” Szeszorak said.

When asked why he thought carts may be getting taken, Szeszorak cited a number of reasons including: Local customers who borrow a shopping cart to take their paid groceries home but do not return it; shoplifting or theft of goods with the cart or basket out the front door; or, simply empty carts being improperly removed and stolen out of parking lots to be used for another purpose.

Noting how 10 carts have been returned since the sign went up, Szeszorak thanked the Good Samaritans and members of the public who have taken it upon themselves to return the store’s property. Going forward, he encouraged anyone who sees a store cart to simply call the store so staff can come and pick it up.

“If there’s a not-for-profit group out and about in our community and they are interested in picking up carts, we certainly would want them back and would consider making a donation to their group,” he said.

The store’s sign caught the attention of Prince Albert city councillors Dawn Kilmer and Charlene Miller. Miller, who then shared the picture on her own social media and helped collect a few carts, confirmed the abandoned shopping carts have been showing up all over the city.

“It’s unfortunate. These shopping carts are very expensive for local businesses,” she said.

She confirmed the city is exploring solutions, adding there has not been a council meeting since the store’s posting went up.

“Next week we do have one and we’ll see what kind of solutions come out of there,” Miller said.

Kilmer explained they (meaning herself, Miller and Szeszorak) discussed phoning the city landfill to see if it has carts there, and also discussed contacting the media to get residents to understand how important the carts are to local businesses.

“I have retrieved carts and moved them to a location, contacted some stores to pick up. One store did not come at all while I was there and the cart was gone,” she said.

Kilmer said she hopes members of the public realize if they see a cart it would be greatly appreciated by the store owners if they would return them to store property.

When paNOW contacted Todd Olexson, the city’s sanitation manager, he explained any abandoned carts are picked up and taken to the landfill.

“They are generally in poor shape by the time we are picking them up and they are put in the landfill’s metal recycle pile,” he said.

paNOW attempted to reach out to other grocery and retail stores in the Prince Albert area for comment, but as of the publishing deadline had not received a response. Speaking off the record, one other store manager did confirm it was an issue for them.