I hear you. I have family members with IBS and have been part of many family dramas when people who needed bathrooms urgently couldn't get them in a timely manner while running errands.

Also, state of Maryland, people driving on rural roads to your Civil War battlefields might need bathrooms if theyre little kids, elderly, or have IBS!!! Thanks for nothing for an especially traumatic road trip years ago when we discovered MD gas stations don't usually keep bathrooms public and have absolutely no mercy.

Why don’t we demand public restrooms be available across the city? Isn’t plumbing and sanitation one of the main benefits of civilization?

The grocery store nearest to us recently started locking their restroom so you have to find an employee to unlock it for you. I’ll be shopping at the other grocery store a little further away a lot more now because of this.

Anonymous wrote:It’s illegal for a business not to have a bathroom for employees. It’s not illegal for that business to choose not to open that bathroom to customers.

This is correct in VA. All restaurants must have a working toilet for customers, though. That's the only business type that must provide one for customers.

Anonymous wrote:Some states have Ally's law for certain medical conditions. But generally no restrooms in public establishments unless they serve food. Even then they can say customers only.

I do wonder how you got this far in life without knowing this.

I don’t know where you live, but here in the DMV I shop at garden centers and other businesses where customers have access to restrooms. This GC/nursery in Alexandria sells plants at high prices and can afford maintaining one or two restrooms. Maybe the employees are not flushing the toilets and don’t want customers to complain.

Some states have Ally's law for certain medical conditions. But generally no restrooms in public establishments unless they serve food. Even then they can say customers only.

I do wonder how you got this far in life without knowing this.

I don't know if it's legal or not (I'm sure it depends on the municipality), but it's not uncommon. I've worked in a number of retail establishments that didn't provide a restaurant for customers (and definitely not one for non-customers).

The thing is, maintaining a bathroom for customers is actually a big, expensive undertaking. I worked in a retail store once that originally allowed customers to use the bathroom. But we stopped. The store was in an older building with older pipes. Despite signage and reminders, people would flush whatever down the toilet -- it backed up all the time. Those of us who worked there could be there for 8 hours, while a customer might be there for 20 minutes, but one of them could destroy the bathroom and make it nonfunctional for days until we could get a plumber in there. Also, it was a small store with a small staff -- often just one or two people there. If only one person is working in the store during a quiet part of the day, a backed up toilet means closing the store and locking the front door so that the sole employee can go plunged the toilet and clean up -- you can't just leave the cash register unattended.

You also have to keep it clean enough for customers, and I'd get people complaining about the condition of the bathroom because the person who used it before them was gross and I didn't have time to go clean it between every single person (nor did I want to!). In a larger retail store with a larger staff, including janitorial staff, it's reasonable to expect a clean bathroom. Smaller businesses do not have the bandwidth.

Also, this store was in a busy shopping district and it was clear after a short time that people had just gotten word out that we let customers use the toilet, so people would come in for the sole purpose of using the toilet, buy nothing, and leave.

So yes, we stopped letting customers use the bathroom.

It’s illegal for a business not to have a bathroom for employees. It’s not illegal for that business to choose not to open that bathroom to customers.

I don’t think it’s illegal but I also wouldn’t expect a greenhouse / nursery type business to have a restroom for customers.

Food service / restaurant maybe but not definitely.

I’ve noticed more “no restroom” signs up in all kinds of businesses. I imagine it’s because staffing shortages have made hiring cleaners more difficult, not to mention the rise in drug use in public bathrooms.

Anonymous wrote:In some downtown areas of cities, there are basically no public bathrooms in businesses, and where there are, you must show that you bought something AND request a key or passcode for the bathroom door.

I asked an employee where the restroom was and she told me they had no public restroom, not even for customers spending hundreds on plants. Not even a restroom with passcode.
This was in Alexandria, VA.

Anonymous wrote:What state?

VA

In some downtown areas of cities, there are basically no public bathrooms in businesses, and where there are, you must show that you bought something AND request a key or passcode for the bathroom door.

No.

What state?

I went to a medium size garden center/ nursery. As I was filling my shopping cart with beautiful plants, I went inside the building to look for a restroom. I had a urgency and found out there was no restroom for customers. Is this ilegal?