I couldn't resist including a picture of this cartoon-and-Comic Sans-laden instructional sign for the cart-locking system this store had at one point. I don't believe it's still in use since, as with so many of the Vancouver-area grocery stores I stopped at, this place now has coin-operated locks on all of their carts, something that turned out to be a real pain on this trip since I didn't have any Canadian dollar coins -- and every time I found an abandoned cart that I hoped would give me one if I returned it, it didn't (so either I have no clue how to work the system or other people have figured out how to get carts without putting in a coin). Apparently these signs originally came with
yellow borders, which made the illustration on the right make much more sense. I've seen various signs for this Carttronics system over the years, but never one quite as cartoony as this one!
As you can see here and in the last picture, a few of the spots in this store's parking lot were paid parking. I'm not sure what the goal is there -- on first glance it seems like Safeway/Sobeys was just renting out some spaces for extra money, but they also had signs right next to the pay parking area saying that the whole lot is reserved for Safeway customers, so I'm not sure who they expected to use the pay spaces.
I know you get your coins back at the end, but I'm surprised in Canada they use a $1 coin deposit instead of something less like 25 cents - seems like a lot. I guess they higher the value you charge for the coin deposit though, the more willing people will be to take the carts back in theory (as I sometimes see a handful of carts left in the Aldi parking lot here, although people, including myself, have no issues with grabbing one of those when spotted!) And in the US, the quarter is the highest value coin most people will ever have on them, so you really can't charge more for a cart deposit here than 25 cents.
ReplyDeleteAs for the paid parking, it looks like those spots are right next to the bus stop in the streetview image. It almost seems like a poorly signed park-and-ride area where the paid parking spots are the ones left for people who wanted to park here and take the bus, with the free spots left for the people shopping at Safeway. Outside of that, I don't know what else those paid spots would be for.
I've always thought the 25 cent charge at US stores seemed a bit low, and I always assumed it was just because (like you said) the $1 coin never took off in the US. European stores generally use 1 euro coins for cart deposits too. I know it was pretty rare for me to find abandoned carts at the Canadian stores I visited with coin-operated cart locks, so maybe the higher price works... or maybe it's just the Canadian public living up to their stereotypes! 😃
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