Let’s ban ‘for customers only’
Two black men, Rashon Nelson and Donte Robinson, were escorted out of a Philadelphia Starbucks in handcuffs April 12. The video of the incident is just the latest evidence of racial bias against communities of color by businesses and law enforcement. However, the part not caught on camera was the beginning of their story, where Nelson entered the Starbucks and asked the manager to use the bathroom. The manager’s answer: “Bathrooms are for customers only.”
While an incident like this does not always end in arrest, it is not a rare occurrence. Every day, “restrooms for customers only” policies prevent individuals who are homeless or do not appear to have the funds to patronize a business from using its restrooms. These policies, in conjunction with an absence of publicly funded restrooms and laws that criminalize urinating or defecating in public, deny homeless individuals the ability to perform a life-sustaining activity they have no choice but to carry out.
Many municipalities operate public restrooms, but those bathrooms do not serve the needs of unsheltered individuals. For example, very few public restrooms are open 24 hours a day. Moreover, many are located in government buildings that have security preventing people from entering without identification or based on perceived financial status.
Cities such as San Francisco and Portland dedicate significant resources to the problem but are not doing enough. San Francisco operates 28 public restrooms that are open all day, which amounts to one for every 267 homeless individuals. In Portland, there are 15 24hour restrooms — one for every 278 homeless individuals. As a point of reference, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees requires one communal latrine for every 20 refugee camp residents.
Meanwhile, the hepatitis A outbreak in Southern California is due, in part, to its lack of public bathrooms. In Los Angeles, there are nine 24-hour restrooms for the 1,777 unsheltered residents of Skid Row — a small fraction of the more than 34,000 homeless individuals in the city. In San Diego, there are seven 24-hour bathrooms for the county’s 9,000 homeless residents.
Compounding the problem, many municipalities criminalize urinating, defecating and even washing in public. These laws initially result in a citation. San Francisco, for example, fines individuals between $50 and $500. While California now mandates that courts consider an individual’s ability to pay in assessing the fine, the ability-to-pay standards are applied inconsistently throughout the state. In California and other states that do not consider an individual’s financial capacity, a failure to pay the fine can lead to a criminal charge and up to six months in jail. While most people would agree that these laws address a public health concern, we must ask ourselves whether enforcing them absent meaningful access to bathrooms is a worthwhile use of our criminal justice system.
One solution, however, is hidden in plain sight. Federal law requires workplaces to maintain restrooms for their employees, and state and municipal laws frequently require businesses of public accommodation, such as restaurants, to provide restrooms for their customers. The infrastructure is there. The question therefore is whether we have the will to demand that private businesses accommodate people who are poor, like we have in the past for people of color and individuals with disabilities — and the way we hopefully will in the future for transgender individuals.
In fact, it should come as no surprise that homelessness and race, disability and gender are interrelated. Communities of color account for 61 percent of homeless individuals, 39 percent are disabled and approximately 40 percent of homeless youth identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender.
Businesses will undoubtedly object to a proposal that requires them to open up their bathrooms to everyone. They will argue that it is too costly to maintain. However, a law that requires all businesses to open up their bathrooms minimizes the cost for any one business. They will argue that providing access to public bathrooms is the responsibility of government and not private business. Yet this proposal simply capitalizes on infrastructure that federal and local law already requires. Finally, they will argue that it will discourage patrons from frequenting their businesses, to which we must reply that the days in which businesses are permitted to exclude one class of people to ensure the comfort of another are behind us.
Banning “for customers only” policies will not, in and of itself, solve the problem of access to bathrooms. However, it is the quickest and most cost-effective way to ameliorate the crisis, while protecting the health and dignity of homeless individuals everywhere.