Among the many bills being introduced this legislative session is one that seeks to make stores responsible for their shopping carts getting stolen, then abandoned.
That's the shortest summary I can give of House Bill 1636, introduced by Scot Matayoshi (D), Greggor Iligan (D), Darius Kila (D), Lisa Marten (D), Ikaika Olds (D) and Sean Quinlan (D). A public hearing on the bill is scheduled for 10 a.m. this Friday, Jan. 30, and people can submit testimony at that link.
Why shopping carts? The problem at hand is that shopping carts are among the detritus found by people who clean up our roadsides, streams and waterways. The solution, according to this bill, is to punish the stores, essentially making them victims twice.
You can read the bill in full here, but let's dig into the highlights, there's a lot to unpack.
It begins with, "The legislature finds that increasing incidents of shopping carts being removed from the premises of local businesses have generated community concern regarding the accumulation of abandoned shopping carts in public spaces."
Stolen. The word they're look for is stolen, not "removed." Shopping carts are expensive, anywhere from $250 each and up, plus more costs if a store spends on anti-theft technology. When someone "removes" the cart, they've stolen it. We once referred to such people as thieves, but note the passive language of this sentence, which doesn't refer to the cart nappers at all. No actor is named in "shopping carts being removed," because the bill doesn't want us to see that person, it wants us to see only the store.
"The legislature further finds that while existing law prohibits the unauthorized removal of shopping carts from the premises of local businesses ..."
Look at how many words are spent here to avoid saying more directly that stealing shopping carts is a crime, something government should be in the business of preventing. Government clearly hasn't succeeded at that, because the carts keep getting stolen and so we get a lot of blather. And again, the passive "removal of shopping carts" wording appears. Who's removing them? The bill doesn't want to know. Who's dumping them? Doesn't matter, as far as the bill's authors are concerned.
" ... there is no mechanism for counties to recover cleanup costs or incentivize local businesses to retrieve their property."
Incentivize local businesses to retrieve their property? You mean, their property that was stolen from them and later disposed of, who knows where or when, by the thief? Really? How ever could we "incentivize" businesses to clean up after their own victimization!
Also, why is "counties" in this sentence all of a sudden? This is a House Bill in the Hawai‘i state Legislature. If the counties have a problem, the counties have their own representatives, their own ordinances. As for "recover cleanup costs," the place for the counties to invest is deterring the criminals who steal the carts, before those carts become unsightly rubbish.
"The legislature believes that the implementation of appropriate security measures by businesses that provide shopping carts can reduce the incidence of shopping cart abandonment and the associated impacts on communities."
I don't know why anyone thinks Hawai‘i is anti-business. We only blame businesses for being crime victims and scold them for where their stolen property ends up. Hey, you selfish businesses, stop having nice things! Also, if you're victimized, it's your fault. You made it too easy. How dare you store owners not recognize that we've constructed a low-trust society!
"Accordingly, the purpose of this Act is to: (1) Require every business establishment that provides a shopping cart to mark each cart with identifying information; ..."
Adding expense to the cost of doing business.
"(2) Authorize a county to impound and dispose of a shopping cart and assess impound fees, storage fees, and disposal fees under certain circumstances; ..."
There's the beating heart of this entire bill, everything else is merely justification. In addition to blaming the stores for their own victimization, this bill grows government: Impound the carts where, at what cost? How many cart wranglers need to be employed? How many fine assessors and collectors? And how does the cost of all this enforcement compare to simply disposing of the carts when found, along with all the other bulky items cleanup crews recover?
What next, fines for mattress and furniture stores? Luggage companies and barbecue makers? (I live by the Ala Wai, I've seen things in the water that defy explanation.)
"[A]nd (3) Authorize the counties to return a shopping cart, in lieu of impoundment, to the business establishment, subject to certain fines."
Again, with the fines. This bill acts like the stores themselves are dumping their own carts into the streams in the dead of night and need to be stopped.
It's not a little fine, either. It's $500. Per cart. That was stolen. That's money the stores need to replace their stolen carts, because those carts aren't coming back in usable condition. How would the stores, which run on pretty thin profit margins, get the money to replace the cart and pay the fine? By raising prices. And then everybody pays.
Except for cart thieves and cart dumpers, the actual, real cause of the problem. Nothing happens to them.
Imagine a boxer at a fight. The bell rings. The boxer leaps out of the ring and starts punching everyone in the face except his opponent. That's this bill.
A. Kam Napier is editor in chief of Aloha State Daily. His opinions in Pipikaula Corner are his own and not reflective of the ASD team.
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A. Kam Napier can be reached at kam@alohastatedaily.com.
