What’s wrong with a fledgling Honolulu City Council bill that would pump up criminal penalties and allow jail time for using, leaving, or in any way causing a shopping cart to be in “any public place”?

Let us count the ways.

Last week, the Council voted unanimously to move Bill 49, “Relating to Shopping Carts,” forward from its first reading. The measure reads, “Within any public place it is unlawful for any person to use, place, leave, or in any other manner, situate a shopping cart.”

Introduced by Council member Calvin Say, Bill 49 would leave it to the Honolulu Police Department (HPD) to enforce the law.

This bill fails to serve the public good because:

1. It’s too harsh. The bill states, “Any person convicted of a violation of this article is subject to a fine of not more than $500 or by imprisonment for not more than 30 days, or both.” A month in jail and a $500 fine for pushing a shopping cart along a public right of way is far more punishment than fits the crime.

2. It’s not a solution. Dropping hefty fines on or jailing individuals for leaving, pushing or situating a shopping cart on public property would burden a petty offender with a criminal record and fines that can’t be paid, but it’s unlikely to stop the practice.

3. It targets the homeless. While the bill doesn’t say so, the behavior it obviously targets is the use of carts as receptacles for unsheltered people’s possessions and frames for makeshift tents on sidewalks, in parks, and on public strips of land.

The true “problem” here in need of solutions is homelessness, and the collateral damage done to a community when people live unsheltered on the streets, in parks, and in other public areas.

Say told the Star-Advertiser that his proposed bill was not about homeless people, but about public safety. “The bill is not targeting the homeless population or any specific class of individuals,” he said. “It is targeting illegal conduct and activity.”

However, the state already has a law on the books — Hawaii Revised Statutes 633-16 — making it illegal to remove shopping carts from an owner’s property. That law allows for removal of a shopping cart to be considered a theft, with a fine as penalty.

Bill 49 piles on, adding more opportunities to penalize those who push a cart — and it’s not good public policy.

“Criminalizing poverty and homelessness does not keep our community safer, does not help houseless people get housing, it only makes their situation worse,” said Jongwook “Wookie” Kim, legal director for the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Hawaii.

Instead of that, perhaps the Council should look at putting responsibility on the stores themselves — requiring that they properly secure their carts, which end up littering our streets, parks and streams.

Even more ways that Bill 49 goes wrong?

It would burden HPD, which is already understaffed and under pressure to make more headway against violent crime, drugs and gambling, and pervasive thefts and burglary. Rounding up shopping carts along with the people pushing them doesn’t need to be added to the to-do list.

Finally, the bill is a diversion when Oahu’s elected officials should be tackling more pressing, deep-rooted concerns. The City Council needs to keep its eye on the prize: Facilitating real change on Oahu to meet the dire need for affordable housing — a widespread dilemma that stresses a majority of households on this island.

The lack of housing, and particularly housing for those with very low incomes, is a major cause of homelessness. Mayor Rick Blangiardi and the city administration have pledged to address this crisis by creating more affordable housing. This is where the City Council must also focus its efforts.

Bill 49 need go no further. At its next reading, the City Council must push this rickety contraption off the path.