Dec 9, 2007 1:37 pm US/Eastern
Group Says Public Restrooms A Right, Not Privilege
BALTIMORE (AP) ―
-
-
On this year's World Toilet Day, Steven Soifer, co-founder of the Baltimore-based American Restroom Association, took a tour of downtown establishments.
CBS
On this year's World Toilet Day, Steven Soifer, co-founder of the Baltimore-based American Restroom Association, took a tour of downtown establishments.
His goal was to test his group's conviction that the public not only has a right to use restroom facilities, but that those facilities ought to be clean and reasonably private, as well as accessible to handicapped people, the elderly and pregnant women.
But even on Nov. 19, World Toilet Day -- and even in the association's headquarters city -- Soifer found many establishments hostile to that creed. Approaching clerks and employees at restaurants, stores and banks and asking to use the restroom, Soifer often encountered incomprehension, rudeness and outright refusal.
Sometimes his simple request had to be passed up a chain of command before someone with sufficient authority could render a ruling. And on those occasions when he was granted access, he sometimes was conducted through dark corridors into facilities so unhygienic they took his breath away.
Soifer is an associate professor at the University of Maryland, Baltimore, who teaches community organizing at the School of Social Work.
Soifer and Robert Brubaker, a network engineer from Virginia involved with pedestrian-rights issues, including access to subway bathrooms, founded the nonprofit American Restroom Association three years ago.
Although incorporated in Maryland, much of the group's work originates from Brubaker's home in Alexandria, Va. The board members scattered across the country include a General Motors engineer, a pharmaceutical worker and an academic with an interest in gender-balanced restroom provisions -- an issue also known as "potty parity."
Soifer's group contends the Maryland plumbing code states that any customers or potential customers may use the employee facilities in any store -- which seemed to be news to many downtown proprietors, not to mention officialdom.
"I'm not really sure what it says," said Jack Lesho, director of the State Board of Plumbing. "Nobody's ever asked me this before."
Diane Kastner, executive director of the Maryland Plumbing, Heating and Cooling Contractors, said she's not too familiar with the law either, but is reluctant to let customers use the facilities in the organization's office, and would be loath to allow strangers off the street to do so.
"I mean, can you imagine the derelicts?" she asked.
(© 2009 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)
Click to enlarge
Stumble It!
