Putting the cart before the cost? San Jose shopping cart crackdown could get pricey

AS PART OF A YEAR-LONG EFFORT to rein in San Jose’s problem with abandoned shopping carts, the city has been reviewing proposals to hire a company to retrieve and return carts to grocery stores.

A three-month pilot program shows such a retrieval service could easily recoup its costs through fees charged to grocers. However, the hundreds of thousands of dollars in projected upfront expenses has made some councilmembers squeamish.