As someone who needs a bathroom NOW when she needs one, please leave your bathroom open to customers. That is really a personal request but people like you that allow me to use your bathroom allow me to actually leave the house. (Honestly, if it were a tourist area with only one set of public washrooms, I probably wouldn’t be able to go there without you letting me use yours.)
I promise to clean up after myself and I will probably buy a soda on the way out anyway (or maybe a sandwich or pepperette. Do you have pepperettes?) but, honestly, if I bought something from every place I have ever used the bathroom I would have either been broke or homebound by now.
(However, I have never been denied use of even a ‘Customers only’ bathroom. I think the desperate, crazed look in my eyes makes people sympathetic.)
As a theorectical business owner I can’t imagine not allowing decent folks in need to use the facilities. Once I became a real business owner I suspect my mood would change so much I’d require 500 dollar security deposits for even my customers to be allowed to use them. A small but non zero fraction of people are just thoughtless pigs and I look forward to the day of big brother recording everything and I hope the first place the cameras go are in “public” bathrooms.
Some 10 or 15 years ago, a bar in Pamplona closed its restroom during Sanfermines, claiming that they were tired of spending more time replacing the roll of paper and cleaning the room than serving drinks.
City Hall and the local government discovered that this was legal. The next meeting of the local Parliament passed a law decreeing that the restrooms of a public establishment (bar, restaurant or hallway restrooms in hotels) are public; they must be open to the public when the place itself is.
Of course, “courtesy demands courtesy”: it is considered extremely impolite to use a place’s facilities and not order anything, but at the same time if you’re in a hurry well, you are. You’ll come back at a better time and order something.
Going to Madrid, where “customers only” signs are common, or to Barcelona, where I’ve had to ask “dude, I’m carrying an armful of stuff, I’m about to pee myself, and you want me to order and grab a drink before I pee? Are you sure? And by the way, does that bathroom have a place for me to leave my drink on?” feels so… uncivilized.
I’d be happy to be charged a few dollars to use the bathroom of an establishment. I just don’t want to have to wait in line with other customers so I can buy a nominal item. I gotta go. Fighting that kind of urge with rules is quite an uphill battle.
Maybe other people would be upset at the idea of explicitly playing to use the restroom. I find that the purchase of a nominal item as a fig leaf is silly and inefficient.
When I go into an establishment to use their bathroom I then order something. Well unless the line is long. But I certainly won’t order something before I use the restroom. For all I know they don’t even have one or it’s broken. Then I’ll have to use the bathroom AND have bought something from a place without a bathroom!
You should put a tip jar outside the bathroom and see what becomes of it. If water is a cost concern and everyone using your bathroom is as nice but hurried as all of these full-bladdered Dopers, then you might be able to recoup your costs.
I once was on a document-review project where I was gonig through hundres of boxes in a warehouse that had no bathroom. To pee, I had to go the convenience store down the street, and I felt guilty just using the bathroom, so I would typically buy a drink. This was poor planning on my part.
Question: Is the trash can right next to the door? :dubious:
Because I wash my hands and then use a paper towel to get out of the bathroom. No sense in contaminating my hands on the door handle (because I don’t know who didn’t wash their hands and touched that door handle before they left – so now I want to avoid getting fecal coliform bacteria on my hands) right before I’m about to order a sandwich and eat with my hands. I might attempt to toss the paper towel in the general direction of the trash can, but if you wanted to avoid this, you might place the trash can right next to the door. Then people who do this can open the door, drop the paper towel in the trash and proceed to your counter where they will order food.
I think you should look at every potential non-customer bathroom user as an advertising/marketing opportunity. Give them a small sample of something, maybe you’ll sell a sandwich you wouldn’t have otherwise by locking down your bathroom for patrons only.
I tell ya, I really hate that attitude, especially in a restaurant. If the owners/employees get snippy with me about it, I am more likely to leave and find a place that does have an open-bathroom policy than I am to buy something just to use your restroom. You won’t even let me stop to pee on a road trip? Then why should I give you my money? I’ll go over here to Bubba’s open-door policy restaurant, use theirs, and maybe even pick up a snack before I get back on the road.
I was in a restaurant that had a lock box on the bathroom. “See hostess for token” was on the door. A token cost $5.00 if you were not a customer, but was given free to customers. Cool idea.
Personally, I try to avoid using public restrooms, escpecially if I don’t plan on purchasing anything. I think it’s only fair to use bathrooms in places where I’m eating or shopping.
There is an exception to that. I know that once or twice when my little one was a toddler, we ran into the problem of being out longer than planned and she had to use the potty. Places are nice if they can see that it’s for a wiggling 2-year-old. I made a point to buy a drink or something because I know that each flush adds to their water bill.
Once my child threw up on a long car trip. I pulled over into a convenience store’s parking lot. The sign said the bathrooms were for customers only, but the owner was so sweet and gave me loads of moist paper towels and a plastic baggy to put her messy clothes in. I didn’t end up buying anything since I was concentrating on the mess in the car, but I did appreciate the nice man for helping me. I know that it cost his business to hand out that box of paper towels, water, and the plastic bag. Maybe he was only out $1 for all of that, but I appreciated it.
