For Customers Only

In a Saturday Night Live skit entitled ‘Ruining it for Everyone,’ Jerry Langley, played by Adam Sandler, explains to RIFE host (Julia Sweeney) why he’s responsible for the proliferation of ‘bathroom for customers only’ signs on restaurant doors:

Hostess: Also with us is Jerry Langley from New Jersey. Tell us your story, and what you ruined.
Jerry Langley: Well, uh, uh . . . a few years ago, I-I needed to go to the bathroom . . . [laughs] so . . . I-I-I stopped in this restaurant, and I asked if I could use theirs!  And, uh . . . I was in there, I went a little crazy, and, uh . . . I just started whizzing all over the place!  I whizzed in the sink, and on the mirrors . . . I figured I’m not a customer, I could just whiz away!  I went back there the next night, and they had a sign up: “Bathroom for customers only” [laughs].
Hostess: Well, then . . . now, because of you, the general public can’t use the bathroom at that restaurant.
Jerry Langley: [Laughs] Well, uh, uh . . . actually, I’ve done that at a lot of restaurants!

http://snltranscripts.jt.org/93/93druining.phtml

Potty humour aside, this actually is a shrewd piece of dialogue, addressing, albeit unintentionally, a range of thorny issues associated with public toilet provision.  In this blog post, I will concentrate on the issue of public toilets and privilege, exploring the question of whether public toilets should be available for all or for only a select few—those who can afford to pay per go. 

Public Toilets and Privilege

A cartoon illustration I found online neatly encapsulates a growing problem: ‘bathroom for customers only’ signs mushrooming on restaurant and coffee shop doors.  To a large extent, these ubiquitous signs reveal the frustration of an industry fed up with serving as gatekeeper for the city’s de facto public toilets (of course, these signs also could serve purely mercenary aims).  Yet, these signs are reflective as well of a not-so-tacit and increasingly insidious social convention—if you want to pee, you have to pay.  Now more than ever before, voiding your bladder and bowels is subject to what’s in your pocket and, ultimately, how much you value a pee.

But, should using an ‘away from home’ toilet be a privilege reserved for a select population—those who can afford the cost of a cookie or cup of coffee (or those who can afford to make this choice)?  Or should the ability to go when you need to go be judged a civil right, thus unrelated to how much is in your pocket (or how much you value a pee)?  I would argue that because lack of access to accessible and adequate (sufficient, well-designed, clean, and maintained) public toilets has implications for quality of life and dignity, particularly for the aged, people with disabilities, and the homeless, social groups with an especially acute need for public toilets, the public sector has a moral obligation to increase the availability of at no cost toilet facilities beyond what the private sector currently provides. 

In my next blog post I will attempt to decode the convoluted issue of public versus private sector toilet provision.  The idea I want to put forward in this posting, however, is that the de facto privatisation of public toilets—the offloading of responsibility for public toilets from the public sector to an ill-equipped and often indisposed private sector—has created a system of social stratification whereby access to toilet facilities is determined by age, health, physical ability, and income, and people without the proper credentials are relegated to the lowest stratum.  Yet, the critical need for accessible and adequate public toilets can be met by only the public sector.  It is the public sector that, as the custodian of all citizens and guardian of the common good, has a moral obligation to ensure that the rights of citizenship, such as the right to quality of life and dignity, which in part comes from having access to public toilets, is accorded to everyone equally.