Ward 7 Councilman John Mariol asked a great question at the Jan. 29 Canton, Ohio, City Council committees meeting.
“Do we have any other situations where we punish the person who had property stolen?”
He was questioning an ordinance that would crack down on shopping cart theft by imposing what could be tens of thousands of dollars of expense on supermarket operators and other business people who are the victims of shopping cart theft.
If you asked, Canton Law Director Joe Martuccio might tell you that there is much work yet to be done on this ordinance. This isn’t his idea. In my view, he’s only trying to do the bidding of council without doing harm. If you think the city should encourage businesses to stay here and keep employing city income taxpayers, rather than punish them, you can hope for the best.
Actually, the best might be to not have such an ordinance.
There are a some wards in the city where shopping cart thieves leave carts abandoned in the neighborhoods. What council member wouldn’t want to eliminate this nuisance? Residents who don’t steal store property are probably calling the council members and complaining.
Still, the ordinance as it stood last week would require — among other things — that store owners label all of their carts, post notices that stealing carts is a crime, and adopt some physical measures to deter theft, such as electronic wheel locks on the carts that would render them useless if they are taken off the property, or a security guard who would be employed to prevent theft, or a system of collecting security deposits from shoppers for the privilege of using a cart.
Really.
Maybe City Council could conduct and publish an analysis of how widespread this problem is. If it requires action, maybe there are other solutions to this problem that don't depend on penalizing the victims.
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