Several shopping trolleys from the Port Douglas Coles were left ‘impaled’ on poles and street signs on Sunday by vandals, to the ire of local police. 

Eight trolleys were left atop height-restriction poles in the Coles parking lot and at least one has been found at the top of a street sign on the corner of Mudlo and Craven Streets. 

Port Douglas Coles manager Matt Pawelski said the supermarket’s personnel removed the trolleys, and the public could ring a special hotline to report sightings of the trolleys ‘in the wild’ for retrieval. 

Mr Pawelski said it wasn’t the strangest thing he’d seen people do with trolleys, having previously managed a Coles in Kununurra. 

“We had trolleys ending up in the local creek, which had crocs in it as well,” he said. 

“We ended up having to go out in a little boat and fish them out with a length of rope.”

Sergeant Damian Meadows of the Port Douglas Police station said while putting shopping trolleys on top of poles wasn’t exactly the most serious offence in the book, it was still a nuisance and an ‘eyesore’ for the community. 

“A shopping trolley is actually an expensive piece of equipment, more expensive than I think most people would assume,” he said. 

“Some shopping centres are bringing in magnetic brakes for their trolleys that lock down whenever the trolley is removed from the centre’s carpark, which I think could really help cut down on incidents like these in the future.”

Coles’ trolley removal hotline is 1800 TROLLEY.