Shopping carts are a lifesaver at grocery stores and other big box retailers, but in some parts of Prince George’s County, Maryland, they sometimes have a habit of leaving the premises.

Eventually, they end up by bus stops or left along sidewalks far from where they came from. If you think it’s annoying, the county council agrees. Soon, it might get really expensive for a store to not pay attention to every last cart.

Under a bill sponsored by District 1 Council member Wanika Fisher, who represents an area that includes Hyattsville and Langley Park, retailers that offer 20 or more carts would have to start making sure the store they belong to is easily identifiable, and they would have to do something to keep them from leaving the premises, whether they use a magnetic stop or a security guard watching over the parking lot.

Fisher noted one grocery store in her district requires a 25 cent deposit to even get a cart: “You never see their carts anywhere in my community.”

Starting in June 2025, if you take a cart off its property, that store would be fined $2,000 until steps were taken to secure the cart. The fine would be applied every day until the problem identified by the county is solved.

“The bill is saying you need to have a mechanism to keep your carts on your property in some way. If you don’t do that, you can get fined by the county $2,000,” said Fisher, who noted the fines would only apply to retailers, not county residents who walked off with a cart. “If the businesses do this, you are going to see a lot less carts in the community.”

Sarah Price, from the Maryland Retailers Alliance, was there to provide pushback to the council.

“We do agree that abandoned carts are an issue,” said Price. “We view them as stolen carts, because, frankly, we have not given permission for them to walk off the property.”

Fines for a similar problem in Salisbury run $100. Price said the $2,000 fine was far too punitive. It’s also not clear how expensive it would be for shopping carts to be retrofitted with the right equipment.

Price and Fisher both admitted they did try to discern that online, to no avail.

“You have to make an incentive to do the right thing. Otherwise it’s like, ‘well, let me just pay to play, and I’m just going to pay the $2,000 fine, because that’s actually cheaper than actually doing the thing that we want,’” said Fisher. “So that’s why I just totally disagree with it being a $100 fine for an entire big box, like a Target, like a Home Depot.”

“Those are the things I see in my community … if you do the right thing, avoiding the ticket is cost effective,” she added.

Other members of the council didn’t have much sympathy for the retailers either.

“It’s one of the worst things that really annoys all of the Camp Springs folks to see shopping carts, particularly near the bus stops and just abandoned,” said District 8 Councilman Ed Burroughs, whose district is on the southwestern end of the county. “It is an eyesore, and it certainly has an impact, especially with our senior citizens. They absolutely hate it and they call us often about it.”

After more than a half hour of discussion and tweaking of some language, the committee passed the measure, sending it to the full council for a public hearing and vote later this fall.

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