If you give someone a big cart, they fill it with food. They eat it all, get fat, fill it with food again, this food doesn't last as long, they get fatter, and so on...
I imagine the wheel-locking isn't JUST for the homeless, it's also to deter those poor souls who don't have a car from using the shopping cart to walk their goods home. Someone probably did the math and figured out that the wheel locking gizmos are cheaper than paying a bagboy to drive around the neighborhood in a truck picking up the spare carts.
There are a lot of older folks in my neighborhood who routinely commandeer shopping carts from the local supermarkets and drugstore. If they were to install locking wheels, I suspect that they'd lose the senior's custom. I think that the come around about once a week and retrieve their carts, but often there's a fair buildup of abandoned carts on my block.
This is, IMHO, much nicer than where I grew up in Brooklyn where you couldn't even take the cart into the parking lot, thus forcing you to pay a homeless person to watch your groceries so that nobody would steal them.
Locking shopping cart wheels - a bad idea.
As far as the giant cart thing goes, the only place I've ever seen them is Costco, but everything's bigger at Costco.
If you give someone a big cart, they fill it with food. They eat it all, get fat, fill it with food again, this food doesn't last as long, they get fatter, and so on...
The joys of shopping cart strategic marketing.
Posted by tweedledopey | Link to this comment | 01- 6-05 4:53 PM
[redacted]
Posted by [redacted] | Link to this comment | 01- 6-05 5:26 PM
Look close, the answer's in there.
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 01- 6-05 5:55 PM
Wolfson lies. I just looked at the bunny's ass with 3200% magnification, and though it made me glad, there was nothing about shopping carts.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 01- 6-05 6:05 PM
I imagine the wheel-locking isn't JUST for the homeless, it's also to deter those poor souls who don't have a car from using the shopping cart to walk their goods home. Someone probably did the math and figured out that the wheel locking gizmos are cheaper than paying a bagboy to drive around the neighborhood in a truck picking up the spare carts.
Nice try, you schlubs! Get a taxi!
Posted by neil | Link to this comment | 01- 6-05 6:12 PM
If I remember correctly, Minneapolis has a city ordinance that fines businesses if their carts are found in public places.
Posted by msw | Link to this comment | 01- 6-05 7:47 PM
There are a lot of older folks in my neighborhood who routinely commandeer shopping carts from the local supermarkets and drugstore. If they were to install locking wheels, I suspect that they'd lose the senior's custom. I think that the come around about once a week and retrieve their carts, but often there's a fair buildup of abandoned carts on my block.
This is, IMHO, much nicer than where I grew up in Brooklyn where you couldn't even take the cart into the parking lot, thus forcing you to pay a homeless person to watch your groceries so that nobody would steal them.
Locking shopping cart wheels - a bad idea.
As far as the giant cart thing goes, the only place I've ever seen them is Costco, but everything's bigger at Costco.
Posted by LarryB | Link to this comment | 01- 7-05 1:20 AM