No Public Toilet at the Public Building?
No Shit.
Elderly People, People in Wheelchairs, People With Intestinal Diseases Are All S.O.L.
Have you ever had emergency diarrhea out in public when you’re nowhere near a bathroom? Yeah, it’s not a nice feeling. How would it make you feel if you knew there was a public bathroom mere steps away but the police said NO, you may not use it, go find a bathroom elsewhere, you’re on your own. Good luck with that. Absurd and cruel though it may be, that’s what people get who go to the Emeryville police station. The station, built in the 1970s has two public bathrooms, just like every other Bay Area police station, but the police here have closed off the public bathrooms to the public, leaving the public...well, shit outta luck.
That’s right. Emeryville spent $3.7 million dollars on a remodel of the police station in 2012 but they failed to include even a single bathroom the public can use. Some remodel. If you need to use your police station you paid for and you drank too much coffee or you have sudden diarrhea, you will not be allowed to use either one of the original two bathrooms just off the public lobby behind a pair of locked doors. The police say NO. Even in an emergency. NO even with with a requested police escort. The public was not accounted for when $3.7 million of public money was spent to ‘improve’ the Emeryville police station.
Elderly people, people in wheelchairs or with emergency diarrhea are directed to travel three quarters of a mile west on Powell Street to the public bathrooms at the Emeryville Marina. Again, good luck with that.
We’re making light of it here but it’s not funny actually. Healthy and robust young people aren’t very inconvenienced by having to hold it while they make a police report or any other police services they’re getting but whole classes of people are not free to use their police station at all because of this. People like the elderly, wheelchair people or those with any number of conditions or diseases that necessitate them being close by a bathroom. Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD) like colitis or Crohn’s disease alone affect 1.6 million Americans. 2.7 million Americans are in wheelchairs. Our police station is not available for them unless they’re willing to take a big chance with a terrible outcome.
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| People with Inflammatory Bowel Disease alone make up 1.3% of the population. That means 180 people just within Emeryville. They can't wait to go another 3/4 mile to the next public bathroom. Government buildings open to the public should have publicly accessible bathrooms according to the government's own regulations. |
The State of California stipulates that all public and privately owned buildings where the public gathers be equipped with enough restrooms to meet the needs of the public. Except in Emeryville apparently. The no bathroom thing is another a case of a special lack of minimum accommodation to the public the police here are claiming. Add this to the lack of a fire escape in the public lobby at the police station revealed by the Tattler in 2018. In that case, after much City Council and staff deliberation, the police, against the advice of the Alameda County Fire Marshall, just said NO to adding a fire escape, the public will have to take a risk of death when they use the Emeryville police station. So an existing fire escape was taken away from the public at the police station building in the 2012 remodel.
Of course the lack of a public bathroom at a standalone public building isn’t as dangerous as no fire escape but it is a hallmark of a city that is not sensitive to the needs of all. In a check to see how bad the police here are, we inquired at several Bay Area police stations and we found Emeryville's police stand alone. Not one other municipal police department in the East Bay (or likely beyond) fails to provide a public bathroom. Police personnel in the cities we talked with were shocked that the Emeryville police are so mean.
Private businesses where the public congregates like restaurants, movie theaters, churches and shopping malls are required by law to provide public bathrooms. The government is the agency that polices this regulation. Like with fire escape law, businesses must comply with the public bathroom law but not the government itself says Emeryville. Meanwhile, prudence and good will suggests at least a sign warning about there being no bathroom available to the public be placed conspicuously on the front of the building.
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| Emeryville Police Station Public Lobby There are two formerly public bathrooms located just behind the locked doors on the left. The doors keeping the public away from the bathrooms were part of the $3.7 million remodel of the police building. Also locked behind the doors are the emergency fire escape stairs. |
