This lower warning sign was on a Fred Meyer shopping cart in Albany today.
Maybe this is the solution to the shopping cart problem that has plagued Albany and presumably other towns as well.
No, I don’t mean the problem of having ninos en la canasta. I mean the problem of people making off with shopping carts and then abandoning them or even dumping them in the nearest creek.
I noticed the added “warning” sign on a Fred Meyer shopping cart. The signs may have been there before, but I didn’t see one till today.
Shoppers are warned that the cart “may stop unexpectedly” when they push it out of the store.
More to the point of preventing theft of the cart, it “will stop” if it is “taken beyond the perimeter of the parking lot.”
According to the sign, this unexpected stopping, and the certain stopping when leaving the parking lot, comes about because the cart is equipped with an “asset protection device.”
I looked all over this cart and didn’t see any device. So I guessed it’s in two of the four wheels, at opposite corners. These wheels look different from the other, regular wheels.
According to one explanatory online video, there’s a mechanism in the wheels that is activated by an electronic signal from a cable in the floor below the exit.
Turns out this is nothing new. An online search came up with TV news videos from around the country, including one from a Portland-area Fred Meyer where the anti-theft wheels were installed about five years ago.
The story said this new system would be rolled out, so to speak, at other stores in the Fred Meyer chain. And now the rollout evidently has reached Albany.
According to the TV story, the intent was to stop shoplifting. When thieves fill their carts with stuff and attempt to leave, the carts are supposed to stop at the exit. Once the carts lock, an attendant has to unlock them with an electronic wand.
Not having tried to sneak out without paying, I don’t know whether this new system works against shoplifting.
But how about when the carts are taken all the way off the property? Will the wheels lock?
From the parking lot, I grabbed another cart equipped with the warning sign and pushed it out the exit on Clay Street and down the sidewalk.
The cart rolled merrily along. The wheels did not lock up, and I returned the cart to the corral where I got it. So maybe the system is not yet completely installed, or the bugs have yet to be worked out. (hh)
The secret is in the black wheels. A gizmo inside is supposed to lock when getting an electronic signal.
I’ve been in Fred Meyer and seen one of the carts lock up when someone got too near the entrance with a cart that hadn’t yet gone through check-out. Haven’t you noticed the loud, clanging buzzer that goes off now and then at Fred Meyer? That goes off when a cart is too near the entrance without having gone through check-out. I don’t think the device is intended to protect carts from being taken off the parking lot.
A grocery chain in the mid-west has a 25 cent fee to use the shopping carts. You insert the quarter and the cart is released from the line up. When you exit with your groceries and return the cart, which also takes care of the problem of leaving them in parking spots, your money is refunded when you return it into the cart rack.
So a small fee to rent the cart.
The 1st time I saw that idea was in England. I always thought that was a great idea for the US to implement to deter theft of carts!
Portland Fred Meyers have had for years. You can’t remove off of parking lots.
This happened to me when I got a cart at Freddies but ended up not buying anything.
Alarm went off when I went through the entryway doors to return the cart to the corral.
Scared a few hairs out of me, none of which I have to spare.
Yes, to Jeff B. Senders’ reply. That is when the alarm goes off…when you leave the store with a cart that hasn’t gone through check-out line…and apparently leaving the first set of doors to go to the indoor-cart area is “leaving the store.” An employee appears when this happens and uses a device to unlock the cart. No employees are stationed outdoors by the cart corrals to do this, so when someone takes a cart from the parking lot corrals and leaves the parking lot, no bells and whistles will be sounded.
This would explain the locked-up cart I ran across yesterday morning. It was one of the small carts and it was just sitting there in the foyer and made sense to just grab it as opposed to pulling one out of the line. Imagine my surprise to find it didn’t move. I looked to see if there was something in the wheels, but they looked fine. I grabbed another cart and reported the non-functioning one to one of the clerks.