Yakima residents may now be fined $50 for having a shopping cart in a public street or park after Yakima City Council approved an ordinance Tuesday.

The new ordinance also clarifies language related to cart collection fees – $115 penalties that are assessed to stores that do not pick up shopping carts collected by the city.

The new rules make it easier for carts to be impounded by city officials if they are on public property or with a landowner’s permission if on private property. They also make having shopping carts in public spaces a civil infraction as they try to keep public property clean.

“It’s proposed that this would be a civil infraction, so it’s not criminal,” said City Prosecutor Brooke Hargreaves at Tuesday’s city council meeting.

The council passed the new rules in a 6-1 vote Tuesday. Council member Rick Glenn voted no after raising concerns about the cart collection fee.

City officials say the changes give them more options to deal with shopping carts taken out of business parking lots. But local nonprofits said the rules could impact unhoused and homeless members of the Yakima community, who sometimes use shopping carts for storage.

Shopping carts in public

It will be a civil infraction to push, pull, possess or otherwise operate a shopping cart on a public right-of-way or in a city park under the change. Public right-of-ways include streets and paths owned and maintained by the city.

City officials emphasized that police would impound shopping carts, but not any possessions people were carrying in the shopping carts.

“We can also offer to store their possessions, the same way we do with an encampment,” said City Attorney Sara Watkins.

Trace Bradburn, the city’s solid waste and recycling manager, said property could be stored for up to 60 days and his staff work to communicate those timelines with people who are affected.

Response from local service providers

In an email after the meeting, Rhonda Hauff, CEO at Yakima Neighborhood Health Services, called for more effort on longer-term solutions. YNHS provides medical, housing and outreach services to homeless community members. Hauff is concerned that the costs to police and court services might outweigh the profits from fines.

“I truly wish the council would focus more upstream on solutions for our community – maybe providing lockers for unhoused people to store their possessions (most of which will fit in a container the size of a shopping cart),” Hauff said in an email.

Yakima Union Gospel Mission’s Scott Thielen said the mission provides storage for belongings on site.

“YUGM will always try to be supportive to City Council actions, to the best of our ability,” Thielen said in an email. “YUGM already discourages the use of shopping carts by homeless individuals. They are not allowed on our property, but we do provide safe bin storage for personal belongings so that shopping carts are less necessary for guests staying in our shelter.”

Thielen and Hauff did agree that the fines will be difficult to enforce.

“Fining homeless individuals will likely be ineffective because of enforcement and economic challenges,” Thielen said in an email. “It may be the right thing to do, but we are not expecting big changes in behavior.”

Hauff was more blunt.

“Fining a person $50 is likely to be as successful as squeezing blood out of a turnip,” she said.

Both service providers also called for more support and solutions to homelessness.

Cart collection fee

The city already charges a $115 fee if store owners take too long to collect impounded carts.

Bradburn said city staff collect abandoned carts, notify businesses and hold carts for three days before charging them the fee if they do not pick them up. Council members pushed for a greater grace period. The city’s rules allow the carts to be held up to two weeks before disposal.

Bradburn said many carts go uncollected and the fee is the cost of collecting and disposing of shopping carts.

Hargreaves said there are ways for businesses to avoid paying the fee. To collect their carts for free, stores need to have clearly labeled signs saying that stealing a cart is illegal. Stores that install locks on cart wheels can avoid paying the fine entirely.

“We’re not out to charge these businesses. The goal is to keep our right-of-ways clean and safe for pedestrians,” Bradburn said.