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Business establishments
are not specifically required by any Federal law to provide
public restrooms. Some States however have adopted mandates
for public restrooms in some locations and in some
facilities. The American's With Disabilities Act (ADA) along
with some State building codes do require that new and
renovated public restrooms comply with accessibility
standards and guidelines. Federal law does require that
employers make restrooms available for employees but no
federal law specifically requires businesses to make public
restrooms available for customers.
Americans must rely on
public restroom mandates adopted via individual state or
local ordinances. Consequently, many businesses' restrooms
are not public restrooms and may legally be closed during
certain hours, limited to employees or completely closed to
the public. There are public restroom organizations such as
the American Restroom Association that act as advocates for
the availability of clean, safe, well designed public
restrooms. We owe many thanks to such organizations for the
level of access to public restrooms that we enjoy today.
Much work remains to be done, specifically the enactment of
Federal statutes mandating public restrooms.
Public restrooms are very important in today's mobile
society. People go to the restroom on average 6 times per
day - men spend on average 30 seconds per visit and women
spend on average 60 seconds per visit. Because women require
more restroom time per visit some states require that public
restrooms have 50% more stalls than men's restrooms to
reduce the line wait time for women. Most women would agree
that the availability of stalls in public restrooms is a
major aggravation, primarily because there has been no legal
requirement to provide "adequate" facilities for the public.
The availability of public restrooms is a longstanding
societal problem in the U.S. but it is improving. Most new
buildings today, both public and private, are equipped with
public restrooms that include all the modern apparatus to
gratify and satisfy the most discriminating patrons. In
public restrooms today you will find, not just clean
toilets, but high efficiency washroom accessories such as
touch free toilet paper and paper towel dispensers, heated
air hand dryers and anti-bacterial soap dispensers.
The
evolution of the public restroom is evident each time we
visit a new facility. If you want to improve public
restrooms you must speak up - continued public pressure on
local, state and federal officials to mandate better public
restrooms is required. Also, whenever you find a public
restroom that does not meet your standards for cleanliness
and quality - confront management of that facility with a
friendly suggestion such as- "Cleaning up your public
restroom would be a nice gesture to your customers."
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