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Um, yes, kinda. Though in my experience (US/Michigan), "not public" toilets are very often accessible if one has a good subset of the following traits: Very p

Um, yes, kinda. Though in my experience (US/Michigan), "not public" toilets are very often accessible if one has a good subset of the following traits: Very polite, locally-majority-race, clean, appropriately dressed, discrete, elderly, frail, female, alone, heavily pregnant, with an infant or small child, familiar to the employees, not in an urban area. Old geezer perspective: The withering availability of public toilets is just another symptom of the massive decline in social trust over the past half-century or so. I might suggest that the author talk to people on the "supply side" - especially long-time small business owners - about the expenses and miseries of being on their end of the stick...but the author seems so focused on the rights & well-being of the "user" population that I can't imagine him actually caring about "their sort".

EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK 2y ago
It's not a business of a private business to provide public toilets. Local government must do it, just as they do roads, parks, buses, waste management etc.
tiahura 2y ago
Maybe we should have believed them when they called themselves the counterculture?
ghaff 2y ago
Pretty much. In the US, outside of major tourist areas, my sense is that explicitly public toilets have always been pretty scarce but, if you blend in, you can pretty much always find one at a hotel or a shopping center. No, you won't find them in a more residential area but that's always been the case.
- lotsofpulp 2y ago
  Years ago, when I worked at a hotel, we had to lock down the bathrooms because a specific taxi driver would come and absolutely ruin them. The housekeepers threatened to quit simply because of this 1 person, and we had no reasonably cheap way to stop him, other than removing access to the bathrooms for the public.
  - LadyCailin 2y ago
    Tell him he’s banned from the establishment, and report him to the police for trespassing if he returns? Seems like you took the nuclear option right out of the gates.
    - lotsofpulp 2y ago
      That assumes police would respond quickly enough in this locale (they wouldn’t, you have to say someone is in danger for them to come quick), and that the taxi driver would care, since they might be betting (correctly) at worst, the police would ask them to leave the premises. He was told not to come into the hotel anymore, but he did anyway. Any other solution would have taken too long to implement compared to just changing the locks on the doors and making the housekeepers happy, who you kind of need to operate the business.
    - RcouF1uZ4gsC 2y ago
      And then depending on the person’s race, he sues you for racial discrimination. Or he resists the police when they try to remove him from your premise. You have then opened yourself up to a bunch of risks. Much less risky to shut down access for everyone.
    - kayodelycaon 2y ago
      I can guarantee you this won’t work. The police won’t arrive nearly fast enough and you don’t have a lot of ways to stop him short of hiring a police officer as a guard because private security often aren’t legally allowed touch people. Some people won’t be deterred by anything short of someone who is able to intimidate or harm them. It’s a no-win situation because allowing employees to hit people with clubs isn’t a good idea. :(

EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK 2y ago

It's not a business of a private business to provide public toilets. Local government must do it, just as they do roads, parks, buses, waste management etc.

tiahura 2y ago

Maybe we should have believed them when they called themselves the counterculture?

ghaff 2y ago

Pretty much. In the US, outside of major tourist areas, my sense is that explicitly public toilets have always been pretty scarce but, if you blend in, you can pretty much always find one at a hotel or a shopping center. No, you won't find them in a more residential area but that's always been the case.

lotsofpulp 2y ago
Years ago, when I worked at a hotel, we had to lock down the bathrooms because a specific taxi driver would come and absolutely ruin them. The housekeepers threatened to quit simply because of this 1 person, and we had no reasonably cheap way to stop him, other than removing access to the bathrooms for the public.
- LadyCailin 2y ago
  Tell him he’s banned from the establishment, and report him to the police for trespassing if he returns? Seems like you took the nuclear option right out of the gates.
  - lotsofpulp 2y ago
    That assumes police would respond quickly enough in this locale (they wouldn’t, you have to say someone is in danger for them to come quick), and that the taxi driver would care, since they might be betting (correctly) at worst, the police would ask them to leave the premises. He was told not to come into the hotel anymore, but he did anyway. Any other solution would have taken too long to implement compared to just changing the locks on the doors and making the housekeepers happy, who you kind of need to operate the business.
  - RcouF1uZ4gsC 2y ago
    And then depending on the person’s race, he sues you for racial discrimination. Or he resists the police when they try to remove him from your premise. You have then opened yourself up to a bunch of risks. Much less risky to shut down access for everyone.
  - kayodelycaon 2y ago
    I can guarantee you this won’t work. The police won’t arrive nearly fast enough and you don’t have a lot of ways to stop him short of hiring a police officer as a guard because private security often aren’t legally allowed touch people. Some people won’t be deterred by anything short of someone who is able to intimidate or harm them. It’s a no-win situation because allowing employees to hit people with clubs isn’t a good idea. :(