Charging to use the restroom urgently gets close to violating the rules of civil society in my books. Yes, I know city governments do it in many big cities. Yes, I know it is the norm in many parts of Europe. But still ...
I've had a few businesses (even chains) in NYC insist that I purchase something before using their restroom. As someone who has a comfortable living, I don't hesitate. At the same time, I make a mental note to not give that store my business if I can help it. The whole kindness to strangers thing .. yeah .. that's mostly dead.
I understand the problems caused by homeless individuals when using restrooms or camping out in stores. I even get that the rest room maintenance costs money. In Europe, when you have to pay those old ladies to use the restroom to pee ... that's their income. But still ... when you turn away someone when they urgently need to go ... that's just wrong.
According to http://www.lawblog.de/index.php/archives/2014/01/23/wem-geho... those old ladies in Europe do not get this money as income!
The article says that one of them earned up to 8000 EUR/day in shopping mall during chrismas. She never cleaned a toilet, she calls other guys in via radio to do it. She had to give all the money to the company which operated the restroom and her job was just to watch the plate on which the money was dropped by customers. The article is about her suing her company about that money
Charging for restrooms is also a bit stupid in some cases. I've run into quite a few restrooms here in Denmark where you need to pay by inserting a coin, typically only 2DKK. That's all well an good, the money goes to keep the restrooms clean and you avoid a lot of misuse. The stupid part is that a rather large number of people don't carry cash anymore.
The local bus and train terminals are 2DKK to use the restrooms, but you do really use cash to pay for your travels anymore, so the assumption that you would have a 2DKK coin is a bit flawed. Why can't I use the same card I use to check-in to bus/train to check-in to the restrooms?
It's even worse than that if you consider that bus or train stations tend to be the places where a lot of tourists transit. If I spend just a few hours in a country it does not make much sense to obtain local cash, especially coins which will be unusable as soon as I leave the country. On the other hand, the chances that I will need a restroom at least once in a few hours are quite high ...
Yeah, this drives me crazy. At King's Cross in London (which I'm at at least once a week) it's 30p - if I have cash it's most likely notes not change, so even though they have machines to give change I don't really want to spend the rest of the day with £9.70 or £19.70 in cash.
Would be even worse abroad (though can't think of a time I've run into it), as apart from places where cards aren't enough (of the places I go to frequently, just Dublin and Amsterdam really), I don't take any cash, even notes.
Most of the times I need it I have maybe 10 minutes before my train leaves London, it's evening or late at night, so my options are to find the change or hold it until a train comes (and hope that it actually has toilets on... which not all trains on my route do). Going to St. Pancras would be fine but would mean getting the next train up to an hour later.
Here across the Sound in Malmö they installed toilet doors that you unlock via premium SMS. Of course, all too late they realized that locks out any tourists without a local phone number...
I've had a few businesses (even chains) in NYC insist that I purchase something before using their restroom. As someone who has a comfortable living, I don't hesitate. At the same time, I make a mental note to not give that store my business if I can help it. The whole kindness to strangers thing .. yeah .. that's mostly dead.
I understand the problems caused by homeless individuals when using restrooms or camping out in stores. I even get that the rest room maintenance costs money. In Europe, when you have to pay those old ladies to use the restroom to pee ... that's their income. But still ... when you turn away someone when they urgently need to go ... that's just wrong.