# Legality of pay toilets

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/legality-of-pay-toilets/334057>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [December 4, 2005, 6:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/legality-of-pay-toilets/334057 "2005-12-04T18:17:48Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 3

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**Author:** ![Gfactor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/9de053/32.png) [@Gfactor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gfactor)\
**Post date:** [December 6, 2005, 3:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/legality-of-pay-toilets/334057/41 "2005-12-06T15:06:36Z")

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Here is an article that talks about pay toilets and their legality: [Gotham Gazette -- Public Toilets](http://www.gothamgazette.com/iotw/bathrooms/)

Here is the New York statute that outlaws pay toilets:

> [@](#):
>
> § 399-a. Pay toilets; prohibition. 1. On and after September first,  
> nineteen hundred seventy-five, no owner, lessee or other occupant of any  
> real property or any other person, copartnership or corporation shall  
> operate or permit to be operated pay toilet facilities upon such real  
> property.  
> 2. A violation of the provisions of this section shall constitute a  
> violation.

[http://public.leginfo.state.ny.us/menugetf.cgi?COMMONQUERY=LAWS](http://public.leginfo.state.ny.us/menugetf.cgi?COMMONQUERY=LAWS)

Wikipedia has this to say:

> [@](#):
>
> Pay toilets are almost unknown in the United States. A campaign by the Committee to End Pay Toilets In America (CEPTIA) resulted in laws against pay toilets being enacted in a number of cities and states in the mid-1970s. Around that time, most restroom owners found they were losing more money due to stolen pay boxes than they made.

> **[Pay toilet](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pay_toilet)**
>
> A pay toilet is a public toilet that requires the user to pay. It may be street furniture or be inside a building, e.g. a shopping mall, department store, or railway station. The reason for charging money is usually for the maintenance of the equipment. Paying to use a toilet can be traced back almost 2000 years, to the first century BCE. The charge is often collected by an attendant or by inserting coins into an automatic turnstile; in some freestanding toilets in the street, the fee is inserted...

And here is a rambling Google Answer about the disappearance of pay toilets: [Google Answers: Whatever happened to pay toilets? -for politicalguru-ga](http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=511929)

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Gfactor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/9de053/32.png) [@Gfactor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gfactor)\
**Post date:** [December 6, 2005, 3:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/legality-of-pay-toilets/334057/42 "2005-12-06T15:12:08Z")

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And as others have said, no, the Supreme Court has not ruled pay toilets unconstitutional. As the other links I posted show, pay toilets remain in the US.

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