Customer Toilet Unavailable (And The 'Social Conscience' Co Op May Be The Worst)

[redruby]

16 hours ago, Chekhov said:

TBH if a "random stranger" asked me if their young child could use our loo I would not have the heart to say no.

But this is a false argument anyway because it is not "a random stranger" it is a customer spending money with the shop, and it is a business premises not a private home.

 

Thanks for confirming something I concluded years ago though, pressure for this "no customers to use the staff loo" is not really anything to do with "insurance" or "Health & Safety" (to paraphrase Samuel Johnson : these days  H&S is the last refuge of  a scoundrel, in my experience) but because the staff don't want to have to clean them. Some people (not me however) might say that is understandable, but I just wish people would be more honest about it....

 

I said that a stranger asking to use a toilet in private home was a different situation but even so, many of the same issues apply.

I think the additional cleaning is the least concern actually. In an ideal world there wouldn’t be persons of a nefarious mind who would take advantage of the good nature of a business allowing members of the public, on request, to use its staff toilets. There wouldn’t be persons who take that opportunity to steal items of value from the staff area, find confidential information useful to those of a criminal mind, obtain information about the building that could facilitate a burglary or even to assault an unsuspecting member of staff.   Does a business not have a duty to protect their business from theft, security breaches and the safety of its employees?  Or is it more important to be a public toilet provider?

I think you should re-direct your concerns to the council to provide adequate public toilets not expect businesses to open up their staff toilets to anyone on request. 
Most businesses with ‘customer’ toilets will have non customers using them because there aren’t enough public toilets. That’s entirely at the discretion of the business but a different issue to allowing non staff members to use staff toilets.

Edited May 16, 2023 by redruby

[Chekhov]

8 hours ago, redruby said:

I think you should re-direct your concerns to the council to provide adequate public toilets not expect businesses to open up their staff toilets to anyone on request. 

A customer is not "anyone".

That said I agree with your point that the council should be providing toilet facilities, either directly or by paying businesses to let the public use there's.

[redruby]

3 hours ago, Chekhov said:

A customer is not "anyone".

That said I agree with your point that the council should be providing toilet facilities, either directly or by paying businesses to let the public use there's.

Many businesses do allow non customers to use their *customer* toilets. 
Staff toilets are not for customers.  They are for staff. They are most likely in private, staff area where it isn’t appropriate, secure or safe to allow members of the public to wander around for reasons previously stated. Perhaps some places might agree to it in certain circumstances if their set up allows but I certainly don’t think they are under any obligation and personally I wouldn’t have the cheek to ask.

I once had a part time job in a supermarket as a student. There were customer toilets there but getting to the staff toilets would involve walking through the warehouse (not suitable for children particularly for health and safety reasons and risk of theft), past the offices (confidential data), and a cash office (security risk). I’m sure other supermarkets have a similar set up where it’s completely inappropriate to allow customers in.
Anyway, we’re probably going to have to agree to  disagree. I just hope you don’t pressurise shop staff about this as it’s not appropriate.

[HeHasRisen]

53 minutes ago, redruby said:

Many businesses do allow non customers to use their *customer* toilets. 
Staff toilets are not for customers.  They are for staff. They are most likely in private, staff area where it isn’t appropriate, secure or safe to allow members of the public to wander around for reasons previously stated. Perhaps some places might agree to it in certain circumstances if their set up allows but I certainly don’t think they are under any obligation and personally I wouldn’t have the cheek to ask.

I once had a part time job in a supermarket as a student. There were customer toilets there but getting to the staff toilets would involve walking through the warehouse (not suitable for children particularly for health and safety reasons and risk of theft), past the offices (confidential data), and a cash office (security risk). I’m sure other supermarkets have a similar set up where it’s completely inappropriate to allow customers in.
Anyway, we’re probably going to have to agree to  disagree. I just hope you don’t pressurise shop staff about this as it’s not appropriate.

I'm going to go into Chekhovs shop soon, ask to use the toilet, pee all over his floor, leave massive skids down the bowl, and then leave without buying anything. 

No reason why he wouldn't be fine with this. 

[cressida]

On 15/05/2023 at 13:45, HeHasRisen said:

Ah, here we go. So if I came into your shop, with the intention of spending absolutely nothing, would you still let me use your staff toilet?

He wouldn't know what your intention was unless you actually mentioned it.

 

Thought he was talking  about a little kid not a big one🤣

Edited May 16, 2023 by cressida

[HeHasRisen]

11 minutes ago, cressida said:

He wouldn't know what your intention was unless you actually mentioned it.

 

Thought he was talking  about a little kid not a big one🤣

I got the impression he would happily let anyone use his toilet. Or is he happy to pick and choose? Who knows.