POTTY CRASHERS
Gotta go? Proposal would ensure access to businesses’ public toilets in emergency
When nature calls, rookie Ald. David Moore ( 17th) wants Chicago businesses to listen.
Moore wants every licensed business with a public restroom — including restaurants, bars, hotels and retail stores — to be required to make washrooms available to “individuals who have an emergency . . . without having to make a purchase” or pay a fee.
Moore introduced the ordinance at Wednesday’s City Council meeting after running into a woman at a Subway restaurant two weeks ago who had just had an accident after being denied entry to a public washroom.
“A lady was in there crying. I asked her why. I noticed some water by her leg and she said, ‘ I had to go really bad.’ She said, ‘ I promise you I’ll buy something when I come out of the bathroom.” And they said, ‘ No. You’ve got to buy something first,’ ” Moore said Thursday.
“As she was going through her purse, she couldn’t hold it no longer. She ended up going to the bathroom on herself. I just felt bad. . . . It was humiliating. I would hate to see anybody
POTTY POLITICS
• Ald. David Moore introduced an ordinance that would require businesses with public restrooms to make them available to ‘‘ individuals who have an emergency’’ and not force those individuals to make a purchase. • Moore said he met a woman who said she had an accident after being denied entry to a public restroom at a Subway restaurant. • Advocates for restaurant owners, however, said the ordinance would place an undue burden on businesses, particularly those downtown and near Wrigley Field. else go through that. . . . For them to have to purchase something in order to go to the bathroom is inhumane.”
Currently, public washrooms must be made available to non- customers for “medical emergencies only.” Moore’s ordinance goes further.
It states: “Any licensee that provides public toilet facilities to its customers must allow individuals who have an emergency and need to use the toilet facilities to do so without
“AS SHE WAS GOING THROUGH HER PURSE, SHE COULDN’T HOLD IT NO LONGER . . . FOR THEM TO HAVE TO PURCHASE SOMETHING IN ORDER TO GO TO THE BATHROOM IS INHUMANE.” ALD. DAVID MOORE, on a woman who was told she could not use the restroom without buying something first at a Subway restaurant
having to make a purchase. A fee cannot be charged for the use of the toilet facilities under these circumstances.”
Illinois Restaurant Association President Sam Toia and Tanya Triche Dawood, vice- president and general counsel for the Illinois Retail Merchants Association, said the ordinance is well- intentioned, but goes too far, particularly downtown and near Wrigley Field.
“When you have 40,000 people on the street after the game, what does this do to bathrooms in the restaurant? You get all these people in good moods coming in and using the restrooms just because they want to. They could get a line if you have this many people going into a restaurant to use the bathroom. And you have to keep the bathrooms clean,” Toia said.
“Let’s say during the St. Patty’s Day parade downtown. Do all these people on the street then just walk into all of these restaurants and use the bathroom? . . . Their bathrooms are not really capable of handling hundreds of people. It definitely could be too much of a burden.”
Triche Dawood said the mandate would be particularly burdensome for small businesses in high- traffic areas, and she questioned how store owners would distinguish between a genuine emergency and someone who just wants to hit the head without having to walk too far.
“We want to be able to service more customers who shop. Shopping doesn’t necessarily mean you buy something for that trip. But you’re in that store with the intent to purchase. We want our facilities to be for those customers,” she said.
If the full City Council goes along with the bathroom edict, it would add to the mountain of taxes and mandates imposed on Chicago businesses in recent years, including a higher minimum wage; an $ 838 million property tax increase for police, fire and teacher pensions paid “disproportionately” by the business community; increases in the Cook County sales and hotel taxes and an ordinance requiring employers to provide their employees with at least five paid sick days each year.