By Lee Cataluna
Advertiser Columnist

Sixty years ago, grocers would bring your order of milk, flour and couple cans vienna sausage right to the lanai of your plantation house.

These days, folks buy their vienna sausage by the case and cockaroach store shopping carts to roll the hundred pounds of groceries to their apartments or bus stops.

It's one of those things you might not notice until someone points it out, but then, whoa! There are abandoned shopping carts all over the place. A drive down Kapi'olani Boulevard between Wai'alae and Atkinson is a tour down dead shopping-cart alley, with representatives from every store for miles.

Last year, the Honolulu City Council took up the issue. A bill was introduced "to establish a procedure for the abatement" of abandoned shopping carts. It read:

"Abandoned shopping carts constitute a nuisance, create potential hazards to the health and safety of the public, and interfere with pedestrian and vehicular traffic ... The accumulation of wrecked, dismantled and abandoned shopping carts on public or private property is unsightly, leads to and encourages illegal dumping of other trash and waste, and creates conditions that reduce property values in our neighborhoods."

Gosh, no. Not that.

The measure would have provided for the impoundment of abandoned shopping carts and an administrative fee. The bill was deferred last April.

Meanwhile, stores are trying various measures to keep their carts to themselves. After all, a new shopping cart costs around $150. Notice how clerks now ask if you need help out to the car? That's partly to make sure your cart gets back into the queue. Safeway Pali has the quarter-deposit lock-and-key system as an incentive to bring carts back. Carts from Kaimuki Longs have signs that say you can't take them past the painted line around the parking lot — they'll automatically freeze up (for real).

Foodland has a cart-retrieval department consisting of two vans and three full-time people who go around the island seven days a week collecting stray carts. Foodland also has a hotline to report abandoned carts. You call 735-7246 and leave a message with cart location, date and time seen.

Pearl City High School students even started a community service project to return carts to local stores.

"They fax me every week a recap of how many carts they found and where they returned them," said Foodland Director of Corporate Communications Sheryl Toda. In exchange, Foodland helps the school maintain its cart-retrieval van and has promised to help with an end-of-year party.

Once you start to notice, the abandoned shopping carts really do look awful. Next time you notice Auntie lugging her case of vienna sausage to the bus stop, maybe you can offer to help carry her bag. Or bring back her cart.

Lee Cataluna's column runs Tuesdays, Fridays and Sundays. Reach her at 535-8172 or lcataluna@honoluluadvertiser.com.