maybe we should post a link to this page for the clueless person who wrote that article....

Dog,
Thanks for the link...please find below the letter that I sent to the author after having read her article. I hope that it is acceptable to one and all.
Sharon

Hi Kerry,

I just read (with some humour) your article regarding the death of legislation (and the rebirth of common sense) regarding the obligation of businesses to open up their personal toiddies to the leg-crossed-public at large.

Now, I am a level minded sort of woman who had had her hay-day with the occasional bout of cystitis or an ungainly winter bug but, and here I open a rather large parenthesis, when I got attacked by the socially leathal CD (the ugly twin cousin of Crohns) I only then understood the true meaning of, 'I need the toilet, NOW!'

Here in France (yes, my dearest, you do have readers in Paris), where business people are almost as friendly as the proverbial French waiter, there are no public washrooms, no private ones either for that matter, and often none for blocks at a time in a city that boasts more museums and cafés per square meters than Saudi Arabia has sand. (am I mixing metaphors? Milles appologies!)...

But I degress.

I have been to Walmart in Miami and grocery stores around the country where the public is allowed to pee in privacy and poo to their hearts' content without having to boot-it home, grocery cart left behind in mid-line-up with their jeans full of feecees. I have seen people take their own rolls of TP in with them with narry a back-glance nor a shrug. I have seen customers blithly grab a mag off of the check-out stand and run for their lives to the back of the store for a good read and rince. I have seen them, honestly, go without a worry that they will be dragged out by their short-hairs to be tarred and feathered in pubic for the use of an unauthorised W.C.

I am potty-envious.

Other than the luxury department stores and the top of the line restaurants, most French shops do not possess their own 'toilettes' let alone a public version.

Many a tourist has been forced to drop-drawer and pee between vehicles or behind trees (surely we need more trees!) or in underground parking lots...my husband is a guilty parking-lot-peer to my great chagrin.

I have 'soiled' myself publicly, and not in that dainty-cute-motion-picture-poo-your-pants kinda way. I have been mortified, terrified and humiliated in front of friends, family and strangers not to mention dates as the business person at hand has patently refused me access to a chance for public redemtion and private peace.
And I have wished myself six feet under and burried.

There is little that one does in these libertine days that causes mortification publicly like public pooping.

It is painful, traumatising and life-changing. And not in a good way.

So, laugh if you must. Turn in dersion if you need to. But pray to God that one day you do not find yourself a victim of this dreaded disease. Because honestly, there is nothing funny about it once it is yours.

Sharon

Expatriot American living in Paris since 1983

What an uninformed idiot.

I'm probably going to get slammed for this. I ask that you please read my whole message before I get slammed.

I used to work in a very large mall. And when I say large, I mean the largest mall for literally hundreds of miles in either direction. And we got people from all over. (including different states--with different laws)

Our store did not have a public bathroom. In fact, we only had one toilet and it was unisex. And often wasn't working. <- Important statement right there!
The mall had lots of public restrooms. Male, female and family. The major department stores (there were 4, one on each end and two in the middle) that had public restrooms upstairs and down. You honestly didn't have to go far to get to one. My store was actually the first store outside of one of those major department stores.
Well.
WE had an employee backroom that we would literally get fired for letting a customer back there. We had product that had "release dates" that if we broke, we could be sued. We had our personal stuff back there. Personnel files with sensitive information (like SSN numbers, etc) by the manager's desk and so on... Plenty of reason to respect the employees only sign on the door.
We heard the employee back room bell go off. AT this point in time, our only bathroom was again broke and even the employees had to go to the major department store. I go back there to see who is doing what.
It was a lady who did not work for us and I had not seen. I had been with our manager for a while so I knew no one had asked permission to back there and have an escort or anything.
I told the lady she had to leave the back room she was searching.
She got mad at me and informed me that by law I had to let her use the restroom.

I told her that I couldn't let her stay in the backroom. Period. I would be fired. It would be different if she talked to the manager first. And it would be different if we had a working restroom she had permission to use. She just kept going off on me.
The law said the Mall had to offer her a public restroom. And they did.

How hard would it have been to come up to an employee and ask "I have a situation and can't hold it to get to the next public restroom. May I use your employee restroom?"
When the potty was working, we had several parents come to us with their small, toddler age, potty training children (and a few pregnant women) and ask for an emergency potty. If ours was working, we did escort them back there and let them use it. But this woman was just so rude little did she know if she found and flushed the commode, she would have been soaked as it overflowed on her while she zipped up!

I understand that sometimes you can't hold it. Been there, done that. But I also understand to respect "employee only" signs and ask permission if I don't easily see a sign that says "restroom" or the like. I would ask for a restroom simply because I didn't have time to search for said sign!

when I was reading this article and follow up post, that situation was the first thought I had. And thought I would share. I know some of you will know exactly where I'm coming from.

Jen

I see nothing to slam here.

I was thinking the same thing, as there never is just one side to a story (but I think the snarky tone in the original link is just that, snarky, and not at all written well for convincing people, unless her intent was to convince people she is an uncaring person). About the only thing I agreed with her about was that adding another law to our long list of unenforceable laws is maybe not the best solution. At least she got it with both barrels from the comments I saw.

I don't get why having an urgent bathroom situation means you don't have to be polite or respectful of other's privacy. As a life-long IBDer, I have learned to know where the restrooms are, and to never pass up the opportunity to use them!!

Jan

Atually that did make it to law in Minnesota...

And often those who protest loudest have the least need for the facility. I wouldn't have believed that woman in the backroom for a minute. She was up to something IMO.

The law is made for those who truly need a restroom, like, right now. Every store does not have one or a functioning one.

kathy

We were suspecting she may be up to something since when you open the door, look to the right, see a restroom sink at the end of the walkway. Look to the left, see an office.
She was coming from the office when I opened the door and found her.
BUT--I like to give the benefit of the doubt and maybe she didn't see the washroom sink.
Either way, in the time it took her to "search" for a potty, plus the time she argued with me, she could have already been in the bathroom at the department store.

Jenmystique,

I think your post underscores the point the author of the article was trying to make, which is that forced legalization of bathrooms in retail stores subjects retailers to persons with fraudulent or criminal intentions. The counterargument to this is that video surveillance of the store, although possibly costly, can serve as an effective deterrent mechanism and a helpful investigatory tool to sort out the fakers from people who really need to use the bathroom.

I am an attorney and I have defended the interest of retail stores in situations like this involving persons engaged in criminal behavior or suspected criminal behavior.

Many years ago between college and law school I managed a very busy pizzeria which was primarily a delivery operation with some walk in/takeout business. We were robbed one night and I worked the day shift before the robbery occurred. The guy who robbed us came in under the pretense of being a customer during my shift. At the time I thought both his behavior and wardrobe were odd. Most walk ins we had came in and either ordered a pizza to go or else grabbed a soda out the cooler and paid for it. This guy, who was wearing a long black trench coat, asked if he could use a bathroom and I told him we had no public restrooms. He then pretended to look at the soda cooler for a long while, as if contemplating a purchase. This went on for a few minutes and then he finally walked out.

Anyway, I clocked out at 7 pm, and the guy who managed the night shift would later get robbed by that same dude. What he had under that trench coat was a shotgun which he whipped out and held to my co-manager's head, told him to get on the floor face down and spread eagled, and with shotgun to his head asked him where the money was and my co-manager complied. The guy took the money and left. To this day I am not sure why he did not rob me, but I have come up with 3 reasons after comparing stories with the co-manager:

(1) He was casing our store out
(2) He saw that we were not doing a lot of business during the day that day, and more money would be available that night
(3) My co-manager was alone in the store when robbed whereas I wasn't.

Anyway none of this is to degrade the rights of those with IBD, but merely to point out the legitimate concerns of retailers, for employee safety, security and other reasons.