TURNERS FALLS — Grocery carts are lined up in the alleyways along Avenue A. One cart is lodged in a snow bank outside a laundry on Third Street. Another is parked in front of the apartment building across the street.
Turners Falls, like many downtown areas throughout the country, is littered with grocery carts. These carts are left on the sidewalks and pushed into the alleys downtown, mostly by residents who might not have any other way to get their groceries home from one of the closest grocery stores, Food City, just outside the village core on Avenue A.
These carts will mostly be back at the supermarket in a few days, due to the efforts of one Food City employee who has been picking up grocery carts three times a week in downtown Turners Falls for about 17 years.
“Obviously we don’t like it as a store, but we realize there is a need to bring them home,” said Jonathan Steiner, the store manager who collects the carts. “I try to do it more often so they are not in the public eye.”
He says he realizes that some customers might not be able to get a ride to the grocery store, and walk to and from the shopping center, with a grocery cart of food on the return trip. But then those carts are abandoned in downtown. So he collects about 30 carts a week, loads them into a truck and brings them back to the store.
“They are a caring store. They are all local people who work there so they go out of their way to help the community,” said Police Chief Charles “Chip” Dodge. “Jonathan Steiner has been driving around for years collecting carts. That is part of his normal routine.”
If the police notice more carts than usual on the street downtown, they just call Steiner, said Dodge.
Steiner’s one request is that residents don’t abuse the grocery carts by using them to transport other items besides groceries. Sometimes residents are seen carting clothes from the laundromat, but the vast majority appear to be using the carts for groceries.
“I haven’t seen anybody misuse the carts in any way. People seem respectful of the store’s property,” said Suzanne LoManto, director of Turners Falls RiverCulture. She lives on Third Street and has noticed someone from Food City picking up the grocery carts every week.
“It’s very nice for businesses to acknowledge that many of their patrons do not have wheels and it’s one of things that makes Turners Falls a livable community,” LoManto said. “The businesses are very cool and accommodating for people who don’t have vehicles.”
Every year or so, the store purchases about 25 more grocery carts to make up for ones that are damaged or disappear, said Steiner. The cost of collecting the carts is not something they track. He said keeping their customers happy is worth the expense.
“He has just always done it. It’s an unsung hero thing,” said Dodge, the police chief.
You can reach Lisa Spear at: lspear@recorder.com or 413-772-0261, ext. 280