[HISTORY: Adopted by the Board of Trustees of the Village of Bronxville
2-9-1981 as Ch. 67 of the 1981 Code. Amendments noted where applicable.]
This chapter shall be known and may be cited as the "Shopping Cart Law
of the Village of Bronxville, New York."
It is the intent of this chapter to eliminate danger and inconvenience
to the public caused by the abandonment of shopping carts in public places,
such as streets and sidewalks, within the Village of Bronxville, where the
abandoned carts may become an obstacle and hazard to pedestrian and vehicular
traffic.
For the purpose of this chapter, the following definitions shall be
included in the words or phrases used:
Includes leaving, discarding, dumping, throwing or placing of personal
property in public places.
Includes any rolling or nonrolling basket or container, and any part
or parts thereof, commonly used in supermarkets or self-service stores as
a conveyer of goods, wares and merchandise.
The merchant, purveyor of foods or other goods, establishment or
corporation, who or which provides patrons or customers with shopping carts
and, as a result thereof, has the responsibility under this chapter of placing
the prescribed identification upon such carts.
Includes any street, avenue, road, alley, lane, highway, boulevard,
concourse, driveway, culvert, crosswalk, thoroughfare, off-street parking
area, parking field, commercial parking lot, park, parking place, sidewalk,
vacant lot, plot, parcel of land and other spaces or places available to or
used by the general public.
It shall be unlawful for any person to provide carts for the use of
patrons or in any store or business premises within the Village of Bronxville,
unless the cart has permanently affixed to it a sign, metallic tag or other
means for clearly identifying the owner of such a cart, and the specific store
location at which said cart is used. In addition to the foregoing, the cart
tag or other identification medium must bear a serial or other individual
identification number sufficient to identify and distinguish it from other
like carts belonging to the same owner.
It shall be unlawful, and a violation of this chapter, for any owner
to suffer or permit any person to take any cart from the owner's premises
or parking area and thereafter to abandon, discard, leave, place or suffer
any cart to be left or placed in a public place.
It shall be also unlawful and a violation of this chapter for any person
or customer to take any cart from an owner's store, mercantile establishment
or any place and thereafter to abandon, discard, leave, place or suffer or
permit such cart to be left or placed on a public place as above defined.
A.
Any person violating any of the provisions of this chapter
shall, upon conviction thereof, be subject to a fine of not more than $250
or to imprisonment for not more than 15 days, or to both such fine and imprisonment.[1]
B.
The members of the Village of Bronxville Police Department
shall be authorized and instructed to enforce compliance with this chapter
by affixing summonses to any abandoned shopping carts found in any public
places within the Village of Bronxville and in addition may issue a summons
to any person seen abandoning a cart in violation of this chapter.
When any shopping cart is found abandoned in a public place, such shopping
cart may be removed by the Police Department and stored in a suitable place
at the expense of the owner, as specified below.
[Amended 3-13-1989 by L.L.
No. 4-1989]
A.
Any shopping carts removed from public places within
the Village of Bronxville may be redeemed by the owner thereof any time prior
to disposal by the village by tendering to the Village Clerk the fee as established
by resolution of the Board of Trustees.
B.
The Village Clerk shall require satisfactory proof of
ownership or lawful right to possession of the property sought prior to release.
Any return of property by the Village Clerk to an owner claiming the same,
pursuant to this chapter, shall be an absolute defense to the village against
any other person claiming same.
In accordance with Article 13-A of the General Municipal Law and Article
7-B of the Personal Property Law, the Village Clerk may dispose of shopping
carts held by the Village of Bronxville for a period of 15 days or more at
a public auction held pursuant to notice.
A.
Public notice. Public notice of the auction shall be
given by publication once in the official newspaper or a newspaper designated
by the Village Board for village notices, at least five days prior to the
auction, and shall contain the time and place of the auction together with
a brief description of the articles to be sold.
B.
Proceeds. All proceeds received from the redemption of
or sale of shopping carts at auction as herein provided shall be collected,
applied and disbursed as damages to the Village of Bronxville for the costs
of administration of this chapter; and any such sales or other dispositions
shall be without liability on the part of the village to the owner of the
carts or other persons having an interest therein.
