Stores that want customers to open their wallets should also be required to open their washrooms, say councillors on Toronto’s licensing and standards committee.
The move — which still needs city council approval — flows from the urging of Coun. Howard Moscoe, who chairs the committee. Moscoe has had complaints from constituents about lack of washroom access and said he sympathizes completely.
“I’m getting a bit older, and I can’t manage to pass a washroom without using it,” Moscoe told the committee.
A staff report on the proposal suggests the washrooms need be made available only to “customers,” not the public at large. It would be up to retailers to decide who is a customer.
The proposal would require only stores bigger than 3,230 square feet to open their washrooms to customers. Stores that size are already required to provide separate men’s and women’s washrooms under the Ontario Building Code, he said, so they wouldn’t have to build new facilities — just put up signs opening them to clientele as well as store staff.
