When you gotta go … you can’t go here
When you’ve got to go, you’ve got to go. It’s the law of nature, right? Just physiological fact, the way of the renal system, yes?
If you are lucky — and not at home, work or woods — you are in the right place at the right time when nature calls.
If you are unlucky, you are Mark Jackson.
Jackson is 49 and, like most adults, has never had a problem like this.
But he had a big problem on the night of Feb. 5, a Tuesday, when he had to go RIGHT NOW and was denied access to the bathroom inside the 24-hour Circle K at Central and Wyoming NE.
That led him to — how to put this delicately? — make do with a mop bucket discreetly set off in a corner of the store. That led the clerks to call 911. More troubling than the misuse of a mop bucket, however urgently required, is the reason Jackson said the clerks denied him entrance to the store’s public bathroom.
“They told me I was big, black and intimidating,” he said.
And yes, Jackson is big. He’s 6-foot-4 with an athletic build. He
is also black.
But intimidating? That’s in the eye of the beholder.
Lou Valdes, vice president for operations for Circle K’s Southwestern region and spokesman for those beholders, declined comment beyond saying the incident is under review.
So behold this: Jackson has devoted much of his life to teaching school-age children how to be more confident and caring. For years, he ran a basketball camp for disadvantaged youths. He is the creator of the Way of the Snail, a program that seeks to empower children and teach them skills to resolve conflicts and insulate themselves from bullying, slowly, patiently, like a snail. He and his program were featured in a Journal article published in June 2011.
But on Feb. 5, none of his conflict resolution skills worked with the two clerks on duty.
“I’m good with most of the clerks there, but these guys must have been new,” he said. “I’m pretty much known in those establishments around there as always being cheery, joking around.”
Jackson said that night he was dressed in a yellow T-shirt and blue sweatpants, his workout clothes from the gym, where he had gone that night. He had also stopped by a friend’s house, he said.
Jackson was on his way home when he needed to use the bathroom. He decided to stop at the Circle K, which is also connected to a 24-hour McDonald’s, to purchase a Journal and use the bathroom, a facility he had used many times before.
It was just after 10:30 p.m., according to Albuquerque police records.
Jackson said he asked the clerks to unlock the bathroom door, which requires a clerk to press a button behind the counter. The clerks refused, saying it was their policy not to allow patrons to use the bathrooms at that hour of the night.
Signs on the bathroom doors say that the facilities are for customers and that a receipt is required as proof. No sign indicates the bathrooms are closed to the public at night, and no one at Circle K would confirm that policy.
“I told them, ‘Look, I have diabetes, and sometimes that means when I have to go to the bathroom, I have to go quick,’ ” he said. “That’s when they told me I was too big and black, as if I was some sort of monster.”
Jackson said he was left with choosing either to urinate outside, on himself or in the mop bucket next to the employees’ back room. It was, he said, an emergency.
It was also emergency enough, apparently, for one of the clerks to call 911.
Police records show an officer arrived seven minutes after the call was dispatched, spoke to all parties and left without making an arrest or issuing a citation.
“The officer made a discretionary call to simply have him (Jackson) leave the property after purchasing his newspaper,” Albuquerque police spokeswoman Tasia Martinez said.
To be fair, the Circle K at Central and Wyoming is in a location that has had its share of crime, drunks, prostitutes and problem patrons, especially at night.
But Circle K’s restroom restriction is flush with building code violations and, one can argue, the code of humanity. The American Restroom Association — yes, there is such a thing — says that most municipalities, including Albuquerque, adhere to the 2009 International Building Code, which requires public toilet facilities to be available at all times during business hours, except for periodic cleaning.
“After all the code speak, everyone associated with the activities of the building are to have access to toilet facilities,” Albuquerque Chief Building Official Land Clark said.
Violators are issued notices of correction; if the violation continues, the city’s Building and Safety Division issues a citation and would take “any legal action at our disposal,” Clark said.
Jackson says Circle K has some explaining to do — and an apology to make.
“I teach children to stand up for themselves, and so now I am standing up for me,” he said. “What happened to me was embarrassing, humiliating, discriminatory and wrong. It’s 2013. We shouldn’t have to do this anymore.”