The Great Shopping Cart Theft

CNN reports that cities across the nation are cracking down on abandoned shopping carts. They are fining retailers and imposing storage fees for carts the municipality collects. Some are also fining individuals who remove carts from store property, but most are putting responsibility for the great shopping cart theft on retailers.

City officials argue that retailers can take precautions to reduce the number of carts leaving their premises. The fact that taking the store’s property is theft seems to be irrelevant to city officials. It is much easier to identify and fine a retailer than an individual thief. Government officials generally prefer the easy route. It allows them to say that they are doing something, even if it doesn’t fix the problem.

Retailers certainly have a financial interest in minimizing shopping cart theft. A shopping cart can cost close to $200. If a store has five carts stolen per week, the replacement cost per year is not insignificant. But taking precautions is a decision for each business, not government officials, to make.

Fining retailers when their property is stolen is akin to fining a homeowner when a burglar steals his jewelry. Both are an injustice. Justice demands that the guilty be punished, not the innocent. Fining retailers imposes penalties upon the victim.

Punishing retailers makes them responsible for the criminal actions of others. They are to be penalized, not because they have violated the rights of others, but because their rights were violated.

Shopping cart theft is not the most pressing issue facing America’s cities. But it illustrates why they can’t resolve more important problems, such as housing affordability. They impose a growing number of controls and regulations on housing producers, and then they blame landlords when housing costs soar. But they can day that they are doing something, even if it is making the problem worse.

Justice is the solution to both the affordability of housing and shopping cart theft. Justice demands that we grant to individuals that which they have earned, that which they deserve. Housing producers have earned our respect and gratitude. They should be celebrated, not castigated. Shopping cart thieves deserve to be punished, not absolved of their crimes.