Pay toilet
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
A pay toilet is a public toilet that costs money to use. It may be street furniture or be inside a building, e.g. a mall, department store, railway station, restaurant, etc. The reason of charging money for using toilets usually is for the maintenance of the equipment. Even in countries where paying for use of a public toilet is common, toilets in movie theaters are usually free of charge, even if they are before the ticket check.
The practice of charging for use of public toilets is the origin of the British euphemism for urination, to spend a penny.
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[edit] Payment
Payment can be accomplished by:
- putting money on an unattended plate
- putting money in a box with a slot
- putting money in the slot of a turnstile, which unlocks it; the exit is one-way, e.g. by another turnstile
- putting money in the slot of a spring-door, which unlocks it; possibilities of use by multiple people while only one pays are similar to those of a vending machine giving access to all merchandise
- In the case of a single-user toilet, the user locks the door on the inside, after which the door cannot be opened from the outside even with a coin; the door can be opened from the inside without a coin. There may be a mechanism such that after locking and unlocking the door from the inside, it cannot be locked again from the inside without paying again. This means that successive use by multiple people while only one pays is only possible when giving up some privacy. Some single-user pay toilets (Sanisettes and similar) automatically clean themselves after a user has left.
- In the case of a multi-user toilet, after a user enters the spring-door locks; the door can be opened from the outside again with a coin; the door can be opened from the inside without a coin.
- giving the money to a toilet attendant (who is sometimes also in charge of the cleaning); there may or may not be a rule to pay in advance. Some toilets are part of the time free of charge, but when it is crowded, they are temporarily made this type of pay toilet.
Except in the case of a coin-operated lock, the fee may or may not be fixed. Even if the fee is presented as fixed, it is not enforced in the first two cases.
[edit] Modern times
Pay toilets are not uncommon in Europe. Paris, in particular, is particularly well-equipped with them; the streets of the city are forested with self-cleaning, coin-op booths (landmarks like Sacre-Coeur generally have several). Riders on the Metro may encounter coin-op bathrooms in the underground stations; and even non-mechanized bathrooms may have attendants who expect tips. (This is not to say that there are no free bathrooms in the city -- large stores often have them.) Some service stations offer a coupon equal in value to the amount paid for use of a toilet, redeemable for other goods at that station or others in the same chain.
Pay toilets are almost unknown in the United States. A campaign by the Committee to End Pay Toilets In America (CEPTIA) resulted in laws against pay toilets being enacted in a number of cities and states in the mid-1970s.[citation needed] Around that time, most restroom owners found they were losing more money due to stolen pay boxes than they made.
The practice of charging for use of public conveniences is the origin of the British euphemism for urination, to spend a penny; this was the standard charge for public lavatories from the Great Exhibition of 1851, which featured the world's first public water closets, until the decimalisation of Britain's coinage in 1971. Charging for public urination also gives rise to the French term for a urinal, “vespasienne”; this is directly derived from the Roman nickname for a street-side urine collection pot, whose contents were used in laundry and taxed by the Emperor Vespasian.
Many train stations and bus terminals installed pay toilets during the 1950s and 1960s. Most of these have since been removed owing to vandalism of the pay lock mechanisms.
The use of pay toilets has been made illegal by some municipalities. In other locations, public restrooms must have one free toilet for every 4 to 5 pay toilets.
In the past, some businesses used the payment system to limit access to toilets, and this is still accomplished by use of a key system for patrons only and outright denial of access to the wider public. In most areas, this is illegal for public (stadiums, for example) and government buildings.
In the United Kingdom it is technically permitted to charge for water closets, but not for the use of gentlemen's urinals.
Pay toilets on the streets may provide urinals free of charge to prevent public urination.
[edit] History
[edit] Ancient times
The earliest public toilets were set up in Knossos of the Minoan civilization in the Crete island, now part of Greece [citation needed]. However, the earliest pay toilets were erected in Ancient Rome in 74 AD during the rule of Vespasian, after a civil war in Rome affected Roman finance. The Emperor's initiative was derided by his adversaries, his son Titus even criticised him, to which Vespasian replied by holding up a coin from the first collection to his son's nose and asking him whether its smell offended him. Titus responded negatively, to which Vespasian replied "e lotio est" ("And yet it comes from urine").
[edit] Middle Ages
In some cities during the Middle Ages, there were sellers of public toilets who were equipped with a large cloak and a bucket. For a fee, one could use the bucket while hidden by the cloak.
[edit] References
- Suetonius - The Lives of the Twelve Caesars, VIII, Vespasian XXIII
