Here's a history, you might not have learned in school.
Americans used to pay to use public toilets.
Pay toilets were common in a lot of the spots we rely on for free these days;
airports, rest stops, gas stations.
You had to insert a dime into the lock in order to get into the stall.
In 1970, there were over 50,000 paid toilets in the United States.
By 1980, it was hard to find one anywhere.
What wiped out the pay toilet?
And were we better off when we paid to pee?
Michael and Ira Gassel were a couple of high school kids on
a family trip down the Pennsylvania Turnpike in 1968.
The family stopped to eat at a Howard Johnson restaurant where there were paid toilets.
That's where a conviction took hold,
pay toilets should be eliminated.
With their two friends Steve Frikken and Natalie Brecher,
they started a group they called Ceptia,
they committed to end pay toilets in America.
By 1976, they had 1,800 members.
Their approach was punny and lighthearted,
but the issue was part of a big cultural moment.
The women's liberation movement.
In 1969, the same year Ceptia was founded,
California Assemblywoman March Fong Eu,
took a sledgehammer to a porcelain toilet on the steps of the State Capital,
to protest pay toilets in public buildings.
Urinals were often free,
there was only stalls that required a fee to enter.
So, the practice became an effective tax on women.
Lawmakers started introducing bills to get rid of pay toilets.
The turning point came in January of 1973,
Ceptia had been writing editorials in The Chicago Tribune,
fighting to get rid of pay toilets in the city's airports.
On January 11th, they convened a press conference.
All the major papers were there.
A month later, Mayor Richard Daley
announced the city would remove the pay toilets from the airports.
He said he did it for women's lib.
By 1975, there were 20 state legislatures considering making the same rule.
At the same time, pay toilets were disappearing,
truly public toilets, the kind's operated by city governments also started to disappear.
Cities fell on hard times in the decades after
World War II as people moved out of the cities for the suburbs.
Public restrooms became magnets for vandalism and
drug use and instead of paying to keep them clean and open,
cash strapped cities closed their public restrooms altogether.
By the 90's, as cities revitalize their downtowns,
they also started experimenting with public pay toilets.
These paid toilets are largely automated and clean themselves between users.
They don't cost cities money because they're operated by private companies,
who sell ad space on the sides of the structures.
But from LA to New York,
these toilets have been stymied by zoning issues, bureaucracy, vandalism.
Finding of public restrooms in New York City sometime is trying
to find all the whole grail of finding a clean warm water.
Well, that's a whole another level of different difficulty.
Really, yes.
Public bathrooms make downtowns more inviting and comfortable,
which means people can stay longer and spend more money.
When there aren't adequate public facilities,
certain groups end up just staying home.
The elderly, women with children,
people who can't afford to buy a latte just use a restroom.
If public toilets are good for cities and good for businesses,
who should foot the bill?
We're talking about a basic human need.
While it's clearly an important part of public infrastructure,
what's not clear is, who should be paying for it?
So, what do you think? Should we bring back pay toilets or should everybody pee for free?
Stop by the comments,
let us know what you think and we'll see you next time.