Abandoned shopping carts in the city create a potential hazard to the health and safety of the public, interfere with pedestrian and vehicular traffic, and create a public nuisance. The accumulation of abandoned carts, sometimes wrecked and/or dismantled on public and private property, tends to create conditions that reduce property values, and promote blight and deterioration, resulting in a public nuisance. Further, lost, stolen or abandoned carts result in the obstruction of free access to public and private sidewalks, streets, parking lots, and interfere with pedestrian and vehicular traffic on public and private streets, and impede emergency services. This chapter is intended to insure that measures are taken by the owners of shopping carts to prevent the removal of shopping carts from the owner's premises, to make removal of a cart a violation of this Code, and to facilitate the retrieval of abandoned shopping carts in a manner consistent with state law. (Ord. 938 § 2 (part), 2016)