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Please don't pay to use a pay toilet

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Re: Please don't pay to use a pay toilet

#11

Post by Nav_Panel »

castratikron wrote: post #3

Most Americans under a certain age have probably never heard of a pay toilet: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Committee_to_End_Pay_Toilets_i...

And now it's near impossible to find a toilet in Manhattan after sundown -- either you're sneaking into a bar toilet or you're paying some local business so they'll let you use their customer toilet.

Pay toilets seem like a very reasonable solution (although they installed some in NYC relatively recently with pretty poor results due to camped out homeless people and drug users).

Re: Please don't pay to use a pay toilet

#12

Post by jdlyga »

I'm in the US, and I haven't seen a pay toilet since I was a little kid in the late 80s. What I have seen a lot especially in New York City are bathrooms for customers only. There are large areas of the city where public bathrooms are very scarce, and the only available ones are inside of businesses that require you to buy something before you can use the bathroom.

Re: Please don't pay to use a pay toilet

#13

Post by wonder_er »

Yikes. Who pays for the free toilets, then?

I love pay toilets. Most of them are kept clean, and I don't consider finding a clean, available toilet to be a right.

I've paid for others to use toilets, and I'll keep doing so.

"Don't let people pay for things because poor people might not be able to afford it" is offensive to "poor" people.

Oh well. If it makes him feel like he's championing a cause...

Re: Please don't pay to use a pay toilet

#14

Post by jacalata »

I am very curious to know if the alternative toilets he uses are equally accessible to the poorer people he is advocating on behalf of. I know I can walk into any good hotel and be taken for a guest and probably directed to a bathroom, and I know that many others, especially homeless people, couldn't do so.

Re: Please don't pay to use a pay toilet

#15

Post by denom »

__derek__ wrote: post #4

This framing is ridiculous. The water, power, toilet paper, fixtures, etc., cost money to provide. Someone is always paying for the toilet.

yeah, but if we _all_ pitch in then these costs are marginal, and we can help provide some feeling of humanity to those in need--that's worth a lot more!

Re: Please don't pay to use a pay toilet

#18

Post by icantdrive55 »

ythn wrote: post #5

Pay toilets are super annoying, and very common in Europe. Still, even if you are in NYC, it's hard to find a "free" toilet. Most of the time you have to go to a restaurant, buy something, and then you'll get the key.

This is going to sound weird, but before we get started on the infrastructure, I would like to see thousands of public restrooms built all across America.

Every year, it gets harder to find a restroom.

Re: Please don't pay to use a pay toilet

#19

Post by gwern »

Having run into many public toilets and restrooms which were unusable because they were covered in feces or urine or had crazy homeless people in them harassing people (most recently, in December in Oxford, whose homeless are even worse than SF's, if you can believe it), I often wish I could pay to use a pay toilet. People value more what they pay for, it keeps out people who only want to trash them, and it can pay for amenities like automated washing.

Re: Please don't pay to use a pay toilet

#20

Post by imgabe »

United857 wrote: post #8
castratikron wrote: post #3

Most Americans under a certain age have probably never heard of a pay toilet: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Committee_to_End_Pay_Toilets_i...

Still very common overseas (e.g. most public toilets in China are pay, even in large shopping malls).

I was in China a couple years ago and don't remember seeing any. Beijing in particular seemed to have abundant free public restrooms.
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