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Enforcement of Medford’s new ordinance designed to wrangle stray shopping carts starts April 1, placing new demands on stores to deter what city leaders say has become an eyesore downtown. By Sunday, stores are required to display signs on their premises and on every shopping cart that removing carts from the property is illegal. The signs also must include information about the owner of the cart and a phone number to report the cart has been abandoned. The city historically has footed the cost and furnished the labor to remove store carts that were abandoned around town, which cost it $10,000 in 2017, according to an estimate by Medford police and the Medford Parks and Recreation Department. “Logistically, the Code Enforcement office wasn’t set up to deal with it,” said Medford police Cpl. Tom Venables, who heads the division. Since the ordinance was passed in December, Venables said, officers have been working to inform both store managers and people storing possessions in shopping carts about the changes, which police decided would be enforced beginning in April. That work concluded this month with code enforcement officers picking up carts around town and returning them to stores one final time before stores take on the responsibility. Stores now will be held to a seven-day pick-up deadline for their scattered carts, which the city used to round up and keep at a service center. If stores take longer than seven days to remove a cart from a location where it was reported, city officials will remove it themselves, Venables said, and stores will incur a $50 fine to recover it. After 30 days, the fine jumps to $500, and the cart will be destroyed. “We’ve been doing everything we can to get the word out that this is coming down the pike,” he said. Medford police Deputy Chief Scott Clauson said the number of stray carts already has gone down in the months since the ordinance took effect Jan. 1. Starting April 1, “anyone who is found in possession of a cart that has been unlawfully appropriated is subject to being cited/arrested for the crime of theft,” said a press release from the city about the new shopping cart rules. Venables said that while taking and keeping carts already fell under the definition of theft, stores often didn’t press charges. But once the ordinance changed, they told police they wanted more enforcement. Officers have been contacting people with carts around town to tell them about the changes. Clauson said police won’t specifically begin targeting homeless people or others in possession of carts to hold their belongings. “I don’t see us making a priority out of contacting people with shopping carts,” Clauson said. “Really the theory behind the law was just to get store owners to take more responsibility and come pick their abandoned carts up. It wasn’t meant to target individuals.” Reach Mail Tribune reporter Kaylee Tornay at [email protected] or 541-776-4497. Follow her on Twitter @ka_tornay .