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Jf/bk 09/18/06 ORDINANCE AN ORDINANCE OF THE CITY COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF SANTA ANA ADDING ARTICLE IX TO CHAPTER 33 OF THE SANTA ANA MUNICIPAL CODE RELATING TO SHOPPING CART CONTAINMENT THE CITY COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF SANTA ANA DOES ORDAIN AS FOLLOWS: Section 1. The City Council of the City of Santa Ana hereby finds, determines and declares as follows: A. Shopping carts are routinely abandoned on the streets and sidewalks of the City. Data collected by the City indicates that perhaps as many as 100,000 or more abandoned shopping carts are being retrieved annually from the City's streets and sidewalks. B. While shopping carts are an important amenity to customers of many business establishments, and the removal of these carts are damaging to the business, the presence of these abandoned carts on the City's streets and sidewalks is found to be a public nuisance. C. These abandoned shopping carts are a prime illustration of the "broken window theory" (e.g., Kelling and Coles. "Fixing Broken Windows: Restoring Order and Reducing Crime in Our Communities"). As such, the abundance of abandoned shopping carts on the city's streets and sidewalks encourages additional crime and anti-social behavior. They also tend to reduce property values and are a blight on the community. Communities from Seattle to Lodi to San Bernardino have all identified abandoned shopping carts as constituting classic instances of the broken window theory. D. Abandoned shopping carts also, as public testimony and the photos presented to the City Council amply demonstrate, obstruct the free passage of persons along public and private streets, sidewalks, parking lots and other rights of way and/or interfere with pedestrian and vehicular traffic on streets; E. By blocking the City's streets and sidewalks, abandoned shopping carts also impede emergency service needed to save lives. Ordinance No. NS~XXX Page 1 of 14 11 A-1