{"id":12465,"date":"2012-08-23T08:00:50","date_gmt":"2012-08-23T15:00:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.todayifoundout.com\/?p=12465"},"modified":"2012-08-22T19:59:00","modified_gmt":"2012-08-23T02:59:00","slug":"many-public-toilets-used-to-be-pay-as-you-use","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.todayifoundout.com\/index.php\/2012\/08\/many-public-toilets-used-to-be-pay-as-you-use\/","title":{"rendered":"Many Public Toilets Used to Be Pay as You Use"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Pay Toilet in Paris<\/p><\/div>\n

Today I found out<\/a> many public toilets used to be pay as you use. Or, for those of you like me who’ve been around for more than a few decades, “Today I found out<\/a> what happened to pay toilets.”<\/p>\n

Going to the bathroom might be the one and only activity in America that’s cheaper than it used to be.\u00a0 Pay toilets used to be the rule in airports, bus, and train stations, and one would also often encounter them in gas stations and restaurants.<\/p>\n

The earliest pay toilets in history were erected in Ancient Rome in 74 AD- during the rule of Vespasian, after a civil war greatly affected the Roman financial scene.\u00a0 Vespasian’s initiative was derided by his opponents, but his reply to them became famous: “Pecunia non olet”\u00a0 (“Money does not smell”)…\u00a0 Wise words.<\/p>\n

Fast-forward to the United States in 1935, Walt Disney opened “Walt’s”, a popular cafe on Hollywood Blvd., and the first restaurant ever run by an animation studio.\u00a0 In 1936, “Walt’s” also became the first establishment in North America to install pay toilets.\u00a0 Pay toilets spread across America and were soon common sights in almost all the major cities.<\/p>\n

Pay toilets were never meant to be a profit-making enterprise, but merely something to help defray the costs in cleaning and supplying the bathrooms.\u00a0 It was presumed that the dime or quarter “entrance fee” would motivate users to keep the pay stalls cleaner.<\/p>\n

That theory didn’t work though, for instead of encouraging users to exercise best behavior, bathrooms with pay toilets were often trashed by angry patrons.\u00a0 Later, many of the coin boxes in pay toilets were broken into and the money was stolen.<\/p>\n

Most pay toilets in the 1950s and 1960s were operated by municipalities.\u00a0 But the small amount of revenue generated by pay toilets in airports simply was not worth the attendant hassles; the numerous complaints about their presence; and the constantly broken locks that rendered the toilets unusable.<\/p>\n

Another pay toilet complaint was the “no paper” argument.\u00a0 What if you shelled out your dime or quarter and discovered no T.P. in your stall?\u00a0 This wasn’t exactly an uncommon occurrence for those of us who remember using these.<\/p>\n

The real death knell for pay toilets came after several lawsuits were filed against the municipalities by women’s groups.\u00a0 Pay toilets were sexually discriminatory, they claimed, because women, unlike men, were forced to pay to urinate (urinals weren’t pay as you use on account of the lack of doors to stop people from using them and the fact that there wasn’t much in the way of cost to defray with urinals, unlike when people are defecating).\u00a0 Even the most anti-feminist male chauvinists could see their point on this one.<\/p>\n

In addition to the above lawsuits, a group of homeless people actually filed a class-action lawsuit in New York to end pay toilets.\u00a0 “The fact that I can’t find any place to relieve myself in New York causes me lots of problems and pain”, testified a New York homeless man.<\/p>\n

Now with both the homeless and feminist groups lobbying against them, and people in general hating them, in 1973, Chicago became the first city to ban pay toilets. \u00a0 New York state followed and outlawed them in 1975.\u00a0 Many of the big cities in America joined the crowd and started banning pay toilets.\u00a0 By the end of the 1970s pay toilets became virtually obsolete in the United States.\u00a0 Although long gone in most parts of America, pay toilets still survive and flourish in many corners of the world, such as France, Sweden, Germany, Colombia, and Singapore.<\/p>\n

If you liked this article and the Bonus<\/span> Facts below, you might also like:<\/p>\n