The Law Paints With A Broad (And Often Stupid) Brush

Federal law requires wheelchair access for a certain percentage of bathroom facilities, which in turn mandates a certain amount of space around the toilet.

We opened a store in a city that had its own requirements. One, a store of our size had to have public restrooms available — if not necessarily in the store. Two, the women’s restroom had to have the same number of stalls as the men’s. Since the men’s room had a toilet and a urinal (which was probably also required, since urinals use a lot less water), the women’s restroom had to have two toilets.

But the women’s restroom was smaller than the men’s, so the end result was two toilets, facing each other, with about three feet between them — you could nearly touch the other toilet while sitting on one — with no stalls.

It was as ridiculous as it sounds.

The store manager got so many comments that he finally put up a sign on the door that said (and this is an exact quote): “We know how stupid this is. The city made us do it.”

So, it turned out that there was a local TV station with a “consumer advocate” show whose host lived to point out the stupidity of the city government. One day, the number two person in the city’s code enforcement office came into the store to shop and saw the sign. After a brief conversation with the manager about it, she panicked at the thought of someone telling the gadfly about it and went into overdrive.

The next day, there were code enforcement people out there with tape measures (stretched taut, because it was a close call) determining that a park across the street had public restrooms close enough to count (though we never considered closing ours to the public), and we got some sort of (not small) discount on the next year’s permit fees to compensate us for the cost of removing the second toilet.

And we all lived happily ever after.