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<br />Jf/bk 09/18/06 <br /> <br />ORDINANCE NS-2725 <br /> <br />AN ORDINANCE OF THE CITY COUNCIL OF THE CITY <br />OF SANTA ANA ADDING ARTICLE IX TO CHAPTER 33 <br />OF THE SANTA ANA MUNICIPAL CODE RELATING TO <br />SHOPPING CART CONTAINMENT <br /> <br />THE CITY COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF SANTA ANA DOES ORDAIN AS <br />FOLLOWS: <br /> <br />Section 1. The City Council of the City of Santa Ana hereby finds, determines <br />and declares as follows: <br /> <br />A. Shopping carts are routinely abandoned on the streets and sidewalks of <br />the City. Data collected by the City indicates that perhaps as many as <br />100,000 or more abandoned shopping carts are being retrieved annually <br />from the City's streets and sidewalks. <br /> <br />B. While shopping carts are an important amenity to customers of many <br />business establishments, and the removal of these carts are damaging to <br />the business, the presence of these abandoned carts on the City's streets <br />and sidewalks is found to be a public nuisance. <br /> <br />C. These abandoned shopping carts are a prime illustration of the "broken <br />window theory" (e.g., Kelling and Coles. "Fixing Broken Windows: <br />Restoring Order and Reducing Crime in Our Communities"). As such, the <br />abundance of abandoned shopping carts on the city's streets and <br />sidewalks encourages additional crime and anti-social behavior. They <br />also tend to reduce property values and are a blight on the community. <br />Communities from Seattle to Lodi to San Bernardino have all identified <br />abandoned shopping carts as constituting classic instances of the broken <br />window theory. <br /> <br />D. Abandoned shopping carts also, as public testimony and the photos <br />presented to the City Council amply demonstrate, obstruct the free <br />passage of persons along public and private streets, sidewalks, parking <br />lots and other rights of way and/or interfere with pedestrian and vehicular <br />traffic on streets; <br /> <br />E. By blocking the City's streets and sidewalks, abandoned shopping carts <br />also impede emergency service needed to save lives. <br /> <br />F. Abandoned shopping carts also clog storm drain channels reducing their <br />ability to function properly, by trapping debris and trash and thereby <br />creating flooding hazards. Carts in the storm drains, if not removed <br /> <br />Ordinance No. NS-2725 <br />Page 1 of 13 <br />