Wildomar's city council voted 5-0 to adopt a shopping-cart ordinance that lets the city fine grocery stores $100 every time it has to retrieve a cart abandoned outside a shopping center. The rule targets stray carts that pile up in commercial corridors and residential streets across the city of roughly 37,000 residents, and it follows numerous complaints from locals fed up with the mess.
The ordinance limits where shopping carts can go once they leave store property and aims to reduce carts blocking public rights of way, according to the New York Post. Stores including Albertsons and Barons Market operate locations in Wildomar and would be subject to the new fee structure. As reported by Valley News, the measure received initial approval on July 8 before the council's final adoption on August 12; the council also declared the action categorically exempt from CEQA review.
Why Abandoned Carts Became a City Hall Priority
City officials in Wildomar cited public complaints about stray carts left in commercial corridors and residential neighborhoods, warning that the carts risk clogging storm drainage systems during heavy rain, per Valley News's reporting. Abandoned carts can also interfere with drainage systems more broadly and create safety hazards for pedestrians and motorists, per the seed reporting. In Brawley, which approved its own ordinance in 2025, city official Jimmy Duran said abandoned shopping carts become potential health hazards and interfere with pedestrian and vehicular traffic.
Wildomar isn't alone. Glendale, Duarte, Fortuna, and Eureka all have measures addressing abandoned shopping carts, with Eureka passing a rule in 2025 that charges businesses for carts city employees return to stores. In Brawley, Target and Walmart are reportedly billed $80 per shopping-cart return incident, showing that fine amounts vary from city to city even as the underlying complaint stays the same.
A 2025 State Law Opened the Door
Wildomar's ordinance sits inside a broader legal shift that began when Governor Gavin Newsom signed Senate Bill 753 into law on October 13, 2025, giving local governments expanded authority to retrieve abandoned carts and bill retailers, according to CBS News. The bill, introduced by State Senator Dave Cortese, eliminated a mandatory three-day waiting period that previously barred cities from immediately retrieving wayward carts and raised the maximum fine local authorities can impose from $50 to $100 per cart occurrence, per FastDemocracy. Previously, state law had required cities to hold carts in impound lots for up to 30 days.
Cortese called the former law outdated and said abandoned carts create safety hazards, block sidewalks, pollute creeks, and cost cities time and taxpayer money, according to the seed reporting. SB 753 changed California law in 2025 to allow cities to immediately return wayward carts to their owners, and state guidance now allows cities and towns to fine businesses up to $100 per retrieved cart.
San Jose's Waterway Problem Helped Drive the Bill
SB 753 was co-sponsored by the City of San Jose, where officials reported spending extensive staff hours retrieving thousands of carts scattered across 140 miles of local waterways, with Mayor Matt Mahan actively advocating for the legislation, per CBS News. Environmental volunteer groups like the South Bay Creeks Coalition reported extracting an average of three to four shopping carts per cleanup event from Santa Clara County waterways such as the Guadalupe River and Los Gatos Creek before the law changed, the outlet's report notes.
Hoodline previously covered San Jose's cart program as the city weighed expanding its own retrieval efforts amid budget concerns, a local push that helped inspire the statewide legislation now reaching cities like Wildomar.
Retailers Weigh Costly Fixes to Dodge Fines
Some retailers are looking at technology instead of just paying up. Commercial security vendor Gatekeeper Systems describes electronic wheel-locking containment systems as one option for limiting off-premises cart losses. Retailers can also use automated perimeter barriers or coin-deposit systems as cart-containment methods. Replacement carts can cost stores hundreds of dollars each, according to the same source.
Wildomar's approach also echoes older regional precedent. Citrus Heights adopted a December 2022 ordinance requiring retail establishments with five or more shopping carts to submit formal containment plans, according to the City of Citrus Heights.
Not Every State Is Following California's Lead
The push to fine retailers isn't universal, and some places are heading the opposite direction. In Arizona, following a Phoenix ordinance requiring retailers to manage their cart fleets, state legislators introduced House Bill 2460 in June 2026 to preempt local authority by prohibiting cities from penalizing businesses when their movable property is stolen or abandoned, as Hoodline reported in its piece on the Capitol cart clash over Phoenix's fines.
Meanwhile, in Honolulu, the city council advanced Bill 53 in August 2026, which proposes fining individuals up to $2,000 or imposing up to 30 days of jail time for removing shopping carts from retail property. Honolulu crews collected 3,535 abandoned carts in 2024 and 2,608 in 2025, and the bill highlights a nationwide debate over whether enforcement should target retailers or the individuals who take the carts. Civil rights and housing advocates have warned that aggressive enforcement can disproportionately impact unhoused residents who rely on carts to transport personal belongings.
For now, Wildomar's ordinance keeps the financial burden squarely on retailers rather than the people pushing the carts, positioning the small Riverside County city within the wider statewide shift enabled by SB 753 as more California municipalities weigh how aggressively to bill grocery chains for cleanup.
