I have IBS and I wish this was standard. Public bathrooms can be far and few in between.
From what I read (of anonymous strangers on social media) it's pretty common for stores in downtown Philly to deny restroom access unless you are actually a customer. Obviously that could be inaccurate though, someone correct me if I'm wrong.
Same with Chicago, it seems to be a move against the homeless, at least here it does.
It's not a move against the homeless, it's a move against the mess that the homeless leave in restrooms.
Plenty of people who aren't homeless leave restrooms absolute horrid messes.
Why do businesses even have policies which state that you have to be a paying customer to use the facilities
You could be a rotten son of a bitch, buy something minimal and still trash the fucking place. The homeless aren't going to seek refuge in a bath stall, they'll definitely use it for sure but why does it matter
As someone who lives in a fairly poor area with LOTS of homeless people, the reason is because the more accomodating a place is to the homeless, the more likely the homeless are to make it their home. They will literally use the restrooms of local businesses to clean their clothes, sometimes for hours at a time. It's often easier to just disallow them from using them at all.
It's kind of a catch-22. On one hand, you want to provide a place for the homeless to use the restroom, but on the other hand, it WILL be abused and you are 100% going to have lots of issues going forward.
Have you considered petitioning your city to build an actual homeless shelter where these people can do those things? If homeless people had somewhere like that to stay a majority of them would have no reason to do that as a private business
I live in the Inland Empire in Southern California. It's an urban sprawl with millions of people, and thousands upon thousands of homeless. It's just a fact of everyday life. I come in direct contact with homeless people every single day. There are dozens, if not hundreds, of homeless shelters, both public and private, spread across the area. There are simply too many people.
This was a rule?
I worked at a Starbucks for 3 years, and we never barred people from using the restroom if they didn't get something. Mostly because you're in the business of trying to not upset people and pretty much putting them in the right unless they do something completely unacceptable.
I find the closer to the urban center of a given area is the more restrictive the washroom situation is. This is one a method to deter the homeless from congregating near your business and two to prevent drug users from shooting up.
Vancouver has a massive fentanyl crisis (https://www2.gov.bc.ca/assets/gov/public-safety-and-emergency-services/death-investigation/statistical/fentanyl-detected-overdose.pdf) and when I worked in the mall the security team was far more concerned with drug users in the washrooms than the homeless.
The Starbucks my friend worked at had to charge people for hot water because bums and various street scum would ask for hot water, then throw it at someone, sometimes inside the store, sometimes outside, sometimes back at the cashier who gave them the water.
So to say the least the region's SBucks and the various addicts that roam the streets don't have a good relationship with each other.
With IBS I learn to appreciate clean public bathrooms and not take them for granted
I don't find many places that do it here. But 9 times out of 10, I usually use the bathrooms first before I buy something. Usually because I need to go now, not after I bought something.
Must be some dick store owners out there. I think I've been in Starbucks about 5 times in my life and it was exclusively to pee in their toilet. Never had a single complaint from them.
Of course they do. Homeless folks, in my experience, still do leave them in pretty rough shape. I worked in fast food for a short while, this was my experience.
A lot of them do, but a lot of them also don't. With teenagers you're more likely to get dumb stuff like soap everywhere or damaged TP dispensers than you are to get an actual disgusting messes, though.
Again, this is just my anecdotal experience in LA. It might not be the same everywhere.
if youre nonpaying youre not a customer, so this doesnt affect anyone unless you have some tokens that get you starbux products for free like a free coffee after 9 purchases or something
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