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In the US, we have the Committee To End Pay Toilets In America to thank for this state of affairs. It was an organization started as a joke back in the seventie

In the US, we have the Committee To End Pay Toilets In America to thank for this state of affairs. It was an organization started as a joke back in the seventies, when pay toilets were very common in public spaces; it succeeded all too well. Pay toilets are banned across many states but there has been absolutely no work put into replacing them with public, free toilets. Nobody is willing to pay to maintain these, so if you can’t pay the much higher tax of going into a coffee shop and buying a $10 drink, you are largely fucked. Large banks of pay toilets in places like bus stations, where everyone can take a dump for the minuscule cost of a coin, are long gone. IF you look sufficiently affluent, you can slip into a hotel or a department store (assuming your city’s downtown still has those) and take a free dump in some pretty luxurious surroundings. But if you’re at a point where that $10 drink for bathroom access is a big stretch then you’re probably not going to make it through there without a run-in with security. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Committee_to_End_Pay_Toilets_in_America https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Committee_to_End_Pay_Toilets...

joshuanapoli 2y ago
The situation varies from state to state. In Florida, many businesses are required to have public restrooms. So you should be able to do your business without being coerced into buying that $10 drink.
- trogdor 2y ago
  Florida’s Building Code requires restaurants to have one or more public restrooms. There is no state law that forces restaurants to allow people to use those restrooms. Restaurants can refuse access to non-customers.
  - SoftTalker 2y ago
    > Restaurants can refuse access to non-customers. And many do, because of the repeated experiences of non-customers destroying the restrooms. They aren't doing it just to be dicks to people who need to pee but don't want to buy something.
    - exe34 2y ago
      would it help if there were mass shit-ins? say at council offices, outside the governor's office, etc.
      - blitzar 2y ago
        It would help if people didn't literally smear shit on the walls of public bathrooms when they use them. This is why we can't have nice things.
        exe34 2y ago
        I imagine these people have mental illness that we decided to "treat in the community", i.e. closed the mental health facilities and simply sent them on their way. there are plenty of roboloos that clean themselves now though, so that's not really an excuse anymore.
  - mcculley 2y ago
    Florida Administrative Code Chapter 61C-1.004 2.a requires at least one bathroom for "its employees and guests". It is not clear to me if that means one is required to consider non-customers as "guests". But there is more law than the Florida Building Code. https://www.flrules.org/gateway/readFile.asp?sid=0&tid=27562955&type=1&file=61C-1.004.doc https://www.flrules.org/gateway/readFile.asp?sid=0&tid=27562...
    - riku_iki 2y ago
      Sounds like until someone sue restaurant for denying access to toilet, and this go through appellate court, they do what they want to do?
    - zo1 2y ago
      Ahh, good old ambiguous laws strike again. You read it and might think guests applies to non paying customers. I read it and see it only applying to their guests, i.e. patrons of their restaurant. 3rd person might interpret as simply meaning the restaurant determines who is a guest and it can swing either way. 4th person is a lawyer and thinks some random other part of this document or other law or court case defines guest therefore his interpretation is correct. 5th person is like, we don't care, public access to toilets is a human right and proclaims the first 4 are bigots and such restaurants are to be sued. 6th person starts an organization to catalog all misbehaving restaurants and labels them discrimatory. And so it goes, and will go on till the end of time.
  - bombcar 2y ago
    bombcar's guide to determining if you're a nice part of town - how easy it is to get to a restroom nicest places? good signage, no need to even interact with a human, restrooms that look like the Taj Mahal. middling places? restrooms exist, but you might have to ask bad places? restrooms are hidden, maybe if the clerk is nice you can use theirs, or you have to buy something horrible places? restrooms that do exist look like something from a horror movie, they're locked stronger than Fort Knox, and even then you have to buy, beg just to borrow the key
freedomben 2y ago
Interesting thank you, I had never heard of this! It is unfortunate how sometimes the Law of Unintended Consequences bites activists in the ass. You see a worthy cause and want to improve the situation, only to end up making things worse.
- bluefirebrand 2y ago
  This is also what I would call "the road to hell is paved with good intentions" We need to do a better job scrutinizing cause-effect for things, not just make decisions on a knee jerk "that sounds well intentioned"
- karmakaze 2y ago
  This might fall in the category of Unconsidered Consequences. One can't merely oppose a thing and not support a replacement and have the fallout be "oh well, we tried". It's not like all the pay toilets disappeared all at once leaving no free ones, the group was 'making progress' in their myopic goal all the while.
  - 01HNNWZ0MV43FF 2y ago
    It's rent control but for toilets. Obviously the problem is that toilet landlords got greedy, and it'll be fine when they stop being greedy /s
- d0mine 2y ago
  "unintended"? -- what is the most obvious thing that can happen if paid toilets are outlawed and there is no money (never is) for public toilets? Obviously, there is more to the story. People are not that dumb. Somebody wanted it that way for a reason.
everybodyknows 2y ago
> ... bans in New York, New Jersey, Minnesota, California, Florida, and Ohio. A good proxy for misgovernment at the state level. Sound, publicly beneficial policy would be to leave the pay toilets be, but subsidize local municipality's public toilet efforts. But that would cost real money, whereas yanking business permits is nearly free, as far as the state's balance sheet shows.
brailsafe 2y ago
Surely $10 is like triple what you'd actually be in for
linearrust 2y ago
> In the US, we have the Committee To End Pay Toilets In America to thank for this state of affairs. We really have amazon to thank. Major book sellers ( Barnes and Nobles, Borders, Waldenbooks, etc ) were a major source of clean bathrooms. If you needed to use a bathroom, you could visit a bookstore, use the bathroom, browse for some books you might like to buy and go home and order it on amazon tax-free that night. Unfortunately, amazon did to bookstores what the asteroid did to dinosaurs and we are all worse off for it.
- FireBeyond 2y ago
  Sounds like we have you to thank, using your strange version of logic. Bookstores struggled not just because of Amazon but because they insisted on selling everything at full MSRP, so just like you, people went and bought it for 30% less on Amazon because they were willing to have smaller margins (and it's not like BN and Borders didn't have the buying volume across all their stores).
- ErikBjare 2y ago
  What a strange take
rawgabbit 2y ago
>IF you look sufficiently affluent, you can slip into a hotel I did that walking in downtown Paris near the Place Vendome. I walked into a huge luxury hotel and asked where the restaurant was. I used their toilet and left. It helped I wore a dress shirt and was without sac à dos.
- sersi 2y ago
  I've regularly done the same despite having long hairs, a relatively well grown beard and wearing shorts and sandals (but at least I wear a polo).
autoexec 2y ago
> Pay toilets are banned across many states but there has been absolutely no work put into replacing them with public, free toilets. Nobody is willing to pay to maintain these They'll be willing to maintain them as soon as we start to demand that they do. Right now, our government is more concerned with funneling tax money into their own pockets and those of their "friends" than they are about providing services to the people. If we put a stop to that, there would be more than enough money available to maintain public toilets. We see the same thing happening with every other public amenity and accommodation that used to be commonplace. Drinking fountains and public pools are disappearing, public parks and playgrounds go underfunded/neglected, and the public spaces that remain are increasingly filled with hostile architecture. The Committee To End Pay Toilets did a great thing for this country. You can be certain that if they hadn't worked to stop the greedy people who wanted to profit from the necessity of our own basic bodily functions back then, today we would still have people priced out of being able to use a bathroom in public while the rest of us would still be stuck paying $10 to use the facilities only without also getting the sugared coffee to help expedite the process.
nitwit005 2y ago
The main statistic cited in the article is for the UK, where paid toilets are common: > For instance, data collected in the United Kingdom in 2018 showed that the number of public toilets had dropped by 39 per cent over the previous two decades.
xg15 2y ago
> Pay toilets are banned across many states but there has been absolutely no work put into replacing them with public, free toilets. Nobody is willing to pay to maintain these [...] From what I read, there is a growing homeless population in the US, many of which I assume won't even have a dollar to pay for a toilet. So if the only feasible options are "pay-per-use toilet" or "no toilet at all", then are you saying it's fundamentally impossible to provide any kind of restroom that would be accessible to those people?

joshuanapoli 2y ago

The situation varies from state to state. In Florida, many businesses are required to have public restrooms. So you should be able to do your business without being coerced into buying that $10 drink.

trogdor 2y ago
Florida’s Building Code requires restaurants to have one or more public restrooms. There is no state law that forces restaurants to allow people to use those restrooms. Restaurants can refuse access to non-customers.
- SoftTalker 2y ago
  > Restaurants can refuse access to non-customers. And many do, because of the repeated experiences of non-customers destroying the restrooms. They aren't doing it just to be dicks to people who need to pee but don't want to buy something.
  - exe34 2y ago
    would it help if there were mass shit-ins? say at council offices, outside the governor's office, etc.
    - blitzar 2y ago
      It would help if people didn't literally smear shit on the walls of public bathrooms when they use them. This is why we can't have nice things.
      - exe34 2y ago
        I imagine these people have mental illness that we decided to "treat in the community", i.e. closed the mental health facilities and simply sent them on their way. there are plenty of roboloos that clean themselves now though, so that's not really an excuse anymore.
- mcculley 2y ago
  Florida Administrative Code Chapter 61C-1.004 2.a requires at least one bathroom for "its employees and guests". It is not clear to me if that means one is required to consider non-customers as "guests". But there is more law than the Florida Building Code. https://www.flrules.org/gateway/readFile.asp?sid=0&tid=27562955&type=1&file=61C-1.004.doc https://www.flrules.org/gateway/readFile.asp?sid=0&tid=27562...
  - riku_iki 2y ago
    Sounds like until someone sue restaurant for denying access to toilet, and this go through appellate court, they do what they want to do?
  - zo1 2y ago
    Ahh, good old ambiguous laws strike again. You read it and might think guests applies to non paying customers. I read it and see it only applying to their guests, i.e. patrons of their restaurant. 3rd person might interpret as simply meaning the restaurant determines who is a guest and it can swing either way. 4th person is a lawyer and thinks some random other part of this document or other law or court case defines guest therefore his interpretation is correct. 5th person is like, we don't care, public access to toilets is a human right and proclaims the first 4 are bigots and such restaurants are to be sued. 6th person starts an organization to catalog all misbehaving restaurants and labels them discrimatory. And so it goes, and will go on till the end of time.
- bombcar 2y ago
  bombcar's guide to determining if you're a nice part of town - how easy it is to get to a restroom nicest places? good signage, no need to even interact with a human, restrooms that look like the Taj Mahal. middling places? restrooms exist, but you might have to ask bad places? restrooms are hidden, maybe if the clerk is nice you can use theirs, or you have to buy something horrible places? restrooms that do exist look like something from a horror movie, they're locked stronger than Fort Knox, and even then you have to buy, beg just to borrow the key

freedomben 2y ago

Interesting thank you, I had never heard of this! It is unfortunate how sometimes the Law of Unintended Consequences bites activists in the ass. You see a worthy cause and want to improve the situation, only to end up making things worse.

bluefirebrand 2y ago
This is also what I would call "the road to hell is paved with good intentions" We need to do a better job scrutinizing cause-effect for things, not just make decisions on a knee jerk "that sounds well intentioned"
karmakaze 2y ago
This might fall in the category of Unconsidered Consequences. One can't merely oppose a thing and not support a replacement and have the fallout be "oh well, we tried". It's not like all the pay toilets disappeared all at once leaving no free ones, the group was 'making progress' in their myopic goal all the while.
- 01HNNWZ0MV43FF 2y ago
  It's rent control but for toilets. Obviously the problem is that toilet landlords got greedy, and it'll be fine when they stop being greedy /s
d0mine 2y ago
"unintended"? -- what is the most obvious thing that can happen if paid toilets are outlawed and there is no money (never is) for public toilets? Obviously, there is more to the story. People are not that dumb. Somebody wanted it that way for a reason.

everybodyknows 2y ago

> ... bans in New York, New Jersey, Minnesota, California, Florida, and Ohio. A good proxy for misgovernment at the state level. Sound, publicly beneficial policy would be to leave the pay toilets be, but subsidize local municipality's public toilet efforts. But that would cost real money, whereas yanking business permits is nearly free, as far as the state's balance sheet shows.

brailsafe 2y ago

Surely $10 is like triple what you'd actually be in for

linearrust 2y ago

> In the US, we have the Committee To End Pay Toilets In America to thank for this state of affairs. We really have amazon to thank. Major book sellers ( Barnes and Nobles, Borders, Waldenbooks, etc ) were a major source of clean bathrooms. If you needed to use a bathroom, you could visit a bookstore, use the bathroom, browse for some books you might like to buy and go home and order it on amazon tax-free that night. Unfortunately, amazon did to bookstores what the asteroid did to dinosaurs and we are all worse off for it.

FireBeyond 2y ago
Sounds like we have you to thank, using your strange version of logic. Bookstores struggled not just because of Amazon but because they insisted on selling everything at full MSRP, so just like you, people went and bought it for 30% less on Amazon because they were willing to have smaller margins (and it's not like BN and Borders didn't have the buying volume across all their stores).
ErikBjare 2y ago
What a strange take

rawgabbit 2y ago

>IF you look sufficiently affluent, you can slip into a hotel I did that walking in downtown Paris near the Place Vendome. I walked into a huge luxury hotel and asked where the restaurant was. I used their toilet and left. It helped I wore a dress shirt and was without sac à dos.

sersi 2y ago
I've regularly done the same despite having long hairs, a relatively well grown beard and wearing shorts and sandals (but at least I wear a polo).

autoexec 2y ago

> Pay toilets are banned across many states but there has been absolutely no work put into replacing them with public, free toilets. Nobody is willing to pay to maintain these They'll be willing to maintain them as soon as we start to demand that they do. Right now, our government is more concerned with funneling tax money into their own pockets and those of their "friends" than they are about providing services to the people. If we put a stop to that, there would be more than enough money available to maintain public toilets. We see the same thing happening with every other public amenity and accommodation that used to be commonplace. Drinking fountains and public pools are disappearing, public parks and playgrounds go underfunded/neglected, and the public spaces that remain are increasingly filled with hostile architecture. The Committee To End Pay Toilets did a great thing for this country. You can be certain that if they hadn't worked to stop the greedy people who wanted to profit from the necessity of our own basic bodily functions back then, today we would still have people priced out of being able to use a bathroom in public while the rest of us would still be stuck paying $10 to use the facilities only without also getting the sugared coffee to help expedite the process.

nitwit005 2y ago

The main statistic cited in the article is for the UK, where paid toilets are common: > For instance, data collected in the United Kingdom in 2018 showed that the number of public toilets had dropped by 39 per cent over the previous two decades.

xg15 2y ago

> Pay toilets are banned across many states but there has been absolutely no work put into replacing them with public, free toilets. Nobody is willing to pay to maintain these [...] From what I read, there is a growing homeless population in the US, many of which I assume won't even have a dollar to pay for a toilet. So if the only feasible options are "pay-per-use toilet" or "no toilet at all", then are you saying it's fundamentally impossible to provide any kind of restroom that would be accessible to those people?