Some Hub businesses leery of following suit
Several Boston businesses say they have no plans to follow Starbucks’ example by opening their bathrooms to everyone because they want to keep out drug addicts and the homeless.
“Sometimes people come here and they don’t want to buy anything; they want to use the bathrooms to shoot up,” said Jose Gutirrez, who manages Mooyah, a fast-food restaurant opposite Boston Common.
Even paying customers who want to use the restroom have to be buzzed in by an employee, Gutirrez said.
And at least one customer agrees with the policy.
“If you make bathrooms public, some people would use them for the wrong reasons, like using drugs, which would make customers uncomfortable,” said Roberto Cardoso, 24, of Revere. “I’ve worked at several restaurants where that’s happened. But I’ve also been walking around the city myself and needed to use a restroom. So I understand both sides. That’s why I think the city should make public restrooms available. It would cost money, but it would be one solution.”
At one Burger King downtown, signs reading, “No public restrooms. Customers only, after food purchase,” are posted on the bathroom doors. But a security guard there said he lets anyone in, as long as the person asks “politely” and the restaurant isn’t crowded.
“I’ll let you in,” he said on the condition that his name not be used, “but if you come in high, I won’t because people come in the bathrooms to do drugs.”
But Meghan Tinsley, who recently earned a Ph.D. in sociology from Boston University, noted that the incident that prompted Starbucks to change its bathroom policy was the arrests of two black men who were neither homeless nor drug addicts. Instead, they had asked to use the bathroom while they waited for a business associate to arrive, only to be led out in handcuffs.
“The best policy is to have free access to bathrooms,” said Tinsley, 32, of Arlington. “This is the best way to prevent racial profiling.”