By any measure, life in California is expensive. We face sky-high rent, soaring gas prices, and grocery bills that make your eyes water. And now, under Senate Bill 753 by Senator Dave Cortese (D-Silicon Valley), Sacramento has introduced another hidden cost. This time, it’s wrapped up in the metal frame of your neighborhood grocery cart.
Let’s be clear: stealing a shopping cart is theft, plain and simple. A single cart costs anywhere from $50 to $300 to replace, and when they disappear, someone pays the price. Spoiler alert: that “someone” is you.
A grocery cart tax would allow local governments to seize these stolen carts and charge grocers uncapped “recovery fees” to get them back. Sounds innocent enough until you remember how costs work in the real world.
Every extra dollar a grocer spends to buy back their own property is passed directly onto your grocery bill. So congratulations: while the state continues to struggle with shopping cart thefts, homelessness, and crime on our streets, you end up footing the bill for their incompetence. It has become a never-ending cycle of paying for their failures.
This grocery cart tax doesn’t fix the root problem. It doesn’t deter theft. It doesn’t prevent stolen carts from clogging up sidewalks, creeks, and parks. It simply creates a fresh revenue stream for local governments desperate to plug budget holes. By removing the current cap, a modest and reasonable $50, this grocery cart tax invites cities to turn abandoned carts into cash cows, emboldening them to round up carts and send grocers a hefty bill.
And who really gets hurt? Neighborhood stores in low-income, transit-heavy communities where carts disappear fastest. Those same grocers are often the only grocery option for miles, and could face massive, unpredictable fines.
Meanwhile, the real thieves? They still walk free. They can continue to take carts with no fear of serious punishment. If California wants to discourage shopping cart theft, then treat it like the crime it is, elevate penalties, enforce the law, and stop making law-abiding customers shoulder the cost.
California families are already stretched thin by the soaring costs of housing, gas, electricity, and food. Now Sacramento wants to tax your grocery cart? A grocery cart tax isn’t a solution; it’s a shakedown. It punishes responsible businesses, hits working families the hardest, and disguises another price hike as good governance. Let’s call it what it is: a cash grab, pulled straight from your shopping cart.
