There is no law stating we have to provide public bathrooms...

[KuariKaydrith]

I'm currently working in a gas station that is situated at one end of a strip mall, and I've had a couple of customers have a go at me for our bathroom currently being closed to the public. Both of them have tried to tell me that it's illegal for gas stations to not have public bathrooms for customers to use. Neither of them liked me telling them that there is no such law on the books, and that we only have to provide a bathroom for our staff. In the recent past our bathroom WAS open to customers, but after a customer plugged the toilet up with who knows what a week ago we've made the decision to limit the bathroom to use by staff only. At least until we get a proper fix for the toilet - it's wobbling around on it's base due to the screws currently holding the toilet to the floor being just a bit too short (the plumbers accidentally threw the original ones out and only had a pair of shorter ones handy) and the flange in the tank is torn. Once those issues are taken care of we may open the toilet to the public again...maybe. If I had my way it would be permanently closed to the public because so-called customers have ruined it for everybody else. Clogging the damn toilet is only a minor thing compared to some of the things members of the public have done to our bathroom in the past...and I, for one, hate cleaning up after people have defiled the bowl, the floor, or whatever other surface they manage to fling their bodily waste over...

The last person who got pissy with me over not having a public bathroom got treated to finding out that I was the manager on duty AND the person who made the decision to no longer allow customers to use the bathroom at this time. He threatened to call the city over it and that some city official would come down to the store and hand out fines for the bathroom not being available for his use. I laughed him out of the store...I don't scare easily, nor do I fall for obvious bullshit like that. When I told my boss about it he completely backed me up, and so did our territory manager!

[Pixelated]

In most places, as far as I know, the only businesses that MUST provide a public washroom are those whose primary business is food (racks of chips, candies and coffee don't count). The pharmacy I normally go to used to have a public washroom but closed it with the arrival of COVID and it's still closed now. It's mildly annoying but I'm fairly sure they are not "required" to offer a public loo either (I'm pretty sure not a single one of the big-name pharmacies that dot the city offer a public loo).

And yeah, it only takes a few to ruin it for everybody when you do offer something like that.

[Kristev]

I used to agree, until I became homeless in Portland. Suddenly, for diabetic me, no bathrooms anywhere became a serious problem. And for what? Because of a small handful of drug users. They did have public toilets one could use if you could find them . . . and they weren't locked . . . and they were clean . . . and . . . Basically, it wasn't the help that you'd think it to be.

Luckily for me, I tend to hang around in fast food restaurants, so I had bathroom access there when I could get there. This may sound silly, just sitting there and getting refills on diet drinks all the time, but in a place like Portland, where there can be more protests than there can sunny days (they don't call it Drip City for nothing), being inside of a fast food place instead of caught up in the protest drama is a very safe place to be.

[RealUnimportant]

It seems to be a very American thing to expect all businesses to have available bathrooms. I'm not sure what businesses are required to have it, the only places I can think of that invariably have them are sit-down restaurants/cafes. Of the gas stations I've worked in, one of them only had a bathroom available when the attached car salesroom was open, so that's 5.5 days a week 9-5 when the gas station was 6am-9pm 7 days a week.

[Kit-Ginevra]

Just pondering.. would there be anything under the ADA where businesses have to provide reasonable adjustments or facilities to accommodate disabled people, if you had a customer who had some sort of bowel or bladder disease(such as Crohn's),that they would have to be provided with access to a restroom if needed?

[KuariKaydrith]

I'm in Canada so the ADA doesn't affect us anyway. Plus our bathroom isn't truly accessible - it's clearly more of a staff bathroom tucked away in a hallway to the rear of the store. It's primarily for staff use as we are open 24/7. Letting customers use it is really up to our discretion but there are nearby bathrooms customers can use if necessary, expect for after the nearby Tim Horton's or pizza place are closed for the night. One store I worked at there was no way we could let the public use our staff bathroom, no matter how much they begged - it was down a narrow set of stairs and through the staff room so we'd direct them to the restaurant across the way from us.

[Buzzard]

ADA rules tend to require that 'anything that exists' be made accessible to all. If a public restroom doesn't exist, it doesn't have to be made accessible to the disabled. (Still has to be made properly usable for any disabled employees, of course)

[RealUnimportant]

In the UK there does exist a special pass for those that suffer from extreme bowel problems and may need a restroom with little or no notice, but even that is more of a request to use it than a "get into the bathroom free" card. If it's not safe for someone to go back there, it's not safe with or without a medical reason.

[Dreamstalker]

I was told that we don't need to provide a public restroom as the store does not sell food intended to be consumed on-premises (it's clear that the existing restroom was itself an afterthought after the store was built and was not in the original plans). We do have staff bathrooms that we will take pregnant women/little kids to if asked, but they're in the basement with the locker rooms/grocery back room and thus can be a liability concern (the only cameras down there are in the hallway). I've had to chase customers out of the locker rooms before...the store-provided combination locks are easy to shim and some will open if the combo's just a digit or two off.

Our customer restroom has been closed for over a month; the section of line that's blocked runs through the condo next door, and apparently their board needs to decide if they want to let workmen do anything. Since that happened, it's becoming a bit easier to detect shoplifters (they would use the customer bathroom to hide the goods in coat/purse/reusable bag and ditch the package). We have also not had to call the plumber for the employee restrooms at all (shared line with the customer bathroom, hundred-plus-year-old plumbing, and SCs flush a lot of stuff they're not supposed to).

[Ironclad Alibi]

... and SCs flush a lot of stuff they're not supposed to).

You mean stuff like evidence?

[XCashier]

If I had my way it would be permanently closed to the public because so-called customers have ruined it for everybody else. Clogging the damn toilet is only a minor thing compared to some of the things members of the public have done to our bathroom in the past...and I, for one, hate cleaning up after people have defiled the bowl, the floor, or whatever other surface they manage to fling their bodily waste over...

Yep. This is why we can't have nice things like readily available bathrooms; thoughtless jerks have to ruin it for everyone else. Seriously, how difficult is it to NOT dribble all over the seat and floor? Or NOT flush non-flushable things that'll clog up the system and require an expensive plumber visit to fix? Common sense and decency are not common anymore.

[AkaiKitsune]

I used to agree, until I became homeless in Portland. Suddenly, for diabetic me, no bathrooms anywhere became a serious problem. And for what? Because of a small handful of drug users. They did have public toilets one could use if you could find them . . . and they weren't locked . . . and they were clean . . . and . . . Basically, it wasn't the help that you'd think it to be.

It's not just the druggies/drunks sadly. There's a certain kind of Karen the gets off on making a disgusting mess for someone else to clean up. Everytime we have reopened our bathroom to the public within one shift it is completely ruined and unusable.

I think my favorite was when I was visiting the Starbucks across the way while on break. I was chatting with the kid about to clean the washroom since he obviously couldn't with a customer already in there. Someone had decided to let their kid smear shit all over the walls. Like they were just painted brown. That wasn't my kid got away for a second, that was I stood back and watched. As she's leaving I hear her say on that smug everyone here is my servant because they work service voice "don't worry, it's their job". I knew the staff wouldn't be able to call them out so I did (since my uniform was hidden under a jacket). Told her that the staff might be responsible for keeping the washroom clean but the customers are responsible for being respectful and not causing more of a mess then is unavoidable. I even managed to rope the cops into playing along by accident and they informed her that it could count as vandalism but since they were 'nice' cops and, like they offered every other vandal, if she cleaned up her mess they wouldn't arrest her.

So I got to see her scrubbing the walls in borrowed protection gear, with a bucket of hot water while the cops stood watch on their break. Apparently it's the only public bathroom until you hit downtown and the cops don't want it taken away either. Guess who didn't have to pay for break food.

[Kristev]

As usual. The housed ruin things for the homeless because of their privilege. But at least, in this case, she had to clean up her own brat's vandalistic mess.

[KuariKaydrith]

It never fails to blow my mind over how people treat bathrooms that aren't theirs. When I worked at a Subway several years back the bathrooms were vandalized regularly, and when they had to be closed to 1) repair the damage, and 2) ensure that the staff had access to the only semi-functioning bathroom the amount of complaints we'd get was outrageous. It didn't matter that there were other bathrooms nearby they could use either. Some time after I left that store was bought by new owners and remodeled - now the bathroom doors are controlled by a buzzer behind the sandwich counter, and there are cameras pointed at the bathroom doors in order to catch vandals in the act. From my understanding, the camera has a view of the bathroom each time the door is opened so it will be able to catch both the time the destruction happened and the face of the person responsible. Yes, signs are posted about this and the vandals will be prosecuted.

Over my years working in places with public bathrooms I've seen entirely too much grossness. At one restaurant I worked at I was quite glad that there were separate staff bathrooms from the public ones because I wouldn't have used those public ones. It was bad enough that even when I was off shift and went there to eat that I would duck into the staff bathroom. No amount of hovering over the seat in the public toilet would have helped avoid a potentially gross situation, I'm sure. Just because it's 'somebody else's' job to clean the mess, it shouldn't be taken as an invitation to violate the space. Yes, accidents happen, but there are times when it's clear that you're not dealing with an 'accident'.

[Pixelated]

*snip*

So I got to see her scrubbing the walls in borrowed protection gear, with a bucket of hot water while the cops stood watch on their break. Apparently it's the only public bathroom until you hit downtown and the cops don't want it taken away either. Guess who didn't have to pay for break food.

Why was she given protection gear? It's HER kid's shit.

Yeah, I'm being sarcastic; I'm pretty sure refusing to give her that gear would've brought trouble on the place. Still, it would've been nice to see whatever (probably) costly clothing she was wearing get splattered with her kid's bowel movement.