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City Council Agenda: Elderly Shopping Cart Thieves

Mon, 01/24/2000 - 12:00am — Karen Stevenson
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The Detroit Free Press reports that many grocers are having difficulty keeping elderly customers from taking their shopping carts home with them. Eighty-year-old Southfield Councilman Sidney Lantz plans to discuss this problem at next week's city council meeting. He said grocery store managers are seeing carts disappear in especially large numbers in neighborhoods that have many elderly residents -- and the carts often show up in the parking lots of senior citizen high-rises. Lantz says the frailer seniors need to lean on the carts to get their groceries home, and proposes that the city purchase 100 collapsible carts -- at $17 apiece -- and give them to seniors in need so that they won't have to take the grocery store carts. Lois Hitchcock, 70, chairwoman of Southfield's Commission on Senior Adults, says she doesn't think the solution is feasible. Bill Knox, a 59-year-old communications representative for the AARP, calls it ageism, and said "until someone can demonstrate that older citizens are responsible for stealing shopping carts, I'm reluctant to see this as an issue."

The Detroit Free Press reports that many grocers are having difficulty keeping elderly customers from taking their shopping carts home with them. Eighty-year-old Southfield Councilman Sidney Lantz plans to discuss this problem at next week's city council meeting. He said grocery store managers are seeing carts disappear in especially large numbers in neighborhoods that have many elderly residents -- and the carts often show up in the parking lots of senior citizen high-rises. Lantz says the frailer seniors need to lean on the carts to get their groceries home, and proposes that the city purchase 100 collapsible carts -- at $17 apiece -- and give them to seniors in need so that they won't have to take the grocery store carts. Lois Hitchcock, 70, chairwoman of Southfield's Commission on Senior Adults, says she doesn't think the solution is feasible. Bill Knox, a 59-year-old communications representative for the AARP, calls it ageism, and said "until someone can demonstrate that older citizens are responsible for stealing shopping carts, I'm reluctant to see this as an issue."