Wee problem for strip

The Surfers toilet shortage made national headlines

SURFERS Paradise’s longrunning public urination issue came to a head in the mid-2010s.

The Bulletin last week delved into public toilet shortage on the Glitter Strip, which dogged the council and nightclub precinct.

Councillors baulked at spending more than $1m to build a “gold-plated” toilet block on Cavill Ave until a decade ago when the levels of public urination reached such levels that it attracted poor press with tourists nationally and internationally.

Desperate to avoid a bad look, councillors in late 2014 voted to proceed with a solution – a three-month trial of open-air urinals, which were installed in Cavill Ave Mall the week before Christmas that year.

They immediately attracted criticism from business owners and tourists for disturbing the area’s amenity.

The urinals, which were made of plastic and had only a small modesty barrier, also provoked immediate outrage across Australia.

Mayor Tom Tate, who was not involved in the decision to hold the $5500 trial, phoned councillors from China to cut short the trial and limit use of the urinals.

Originally open from 8.30pm nightly, they instead were allowed to operate from midnight to dawn and the trial was cut from three months to two weeks.

Temporary fencing and shade cloths were installed on Christmas Eve that year.

Surfers Paradise MP JohnPaul Langbroek told the Bulletin at the time that the urinals were an embarrassment and criticised “ratepayers’ money going on an abomination like that”.

“Surely in the 21st century we can come up with better ways of dealing with issues like that,” he said.

Orchid Ave business owner Craig Duffy, of the Hollywood Showgirls strip club, said the whole idea was revolting.

“I’m actually in disbelief. I thought when I first saw it that it was some sort of Photoshop joke. It’s unhygienic and visually unappealing,” he said. “They should get rid of them immediately before Christmas and New Year.

“The more tourists who see that, the more damage will be done to the brand of the Gold Coast.”

Councillors voted in late 2015 to spend more than $150,000 on hi-tech toilets which rose out of the footpath nightly.

They were installed outside the Sin City Nightclub in a move then-councillor Lex Bell said was “the best result we could have hoped for”.

They were finally installed in 2017 and continue to operate as of 2023.

Tim Martin outside Sin City with the construction zone of the controversial urinals. The issue of public urination continued to be a major problem through the mid-2010s.

Dylan Mccartney uses the open-air-urinal on Cavill Ave, Surfers Paradise.

The pop-up urinals that were eventually installed.