Starbucks’s policy change flushes out a debate over public restroom access

Starbucks's decision to restrict its restrooms to paying customers has flushed out a wider problem: a patchwork of restroom policies that has left Americans confused and divided over who gets to use the loo and when. Rules about restroom access in restaurants vary by state, city and county. New York requires restroom access for customers at food establishments with 20 or more seats. California requires larger restaurants to provide restrooms for customers and guests, but only if they were built after 1984. In Chicago, restaurants don't need to have restrooms for customers unless they serve liquor. "It's so mishmash," said Steven Soifer, the co-founder and treasurer of the American Restroom Association, which advocates for clean, safe and well-designed public toilets. "If (a retailer) is serving food and drink, it's a health hazard if there isn't a public bathroom." Starbucks opened the can, so to speak, when it said it was reversing a seven-year-old policy that invited anyone to hang out in its stores or use the restroom, regardless of whether they bought anything. Starbucks's new code of conduct, which will be posted in all company-owned North American stores, also bans discrimination or harassment, consumption of outside alcohol, smoking, vaping, drug use and asking strangers for money. Reaction to the coffee chain's rule change for potty privileges was heated and divided. Many said Starbucks had the right to restrict restroom access to paying customers. "I do think it's up to Starbucks to set the atmosphere in their stores," Paul Skinner, 76, a retired firefighter in Daytona Beach, Florida, told The Associated Press. "If they've decided that their paying customers are going to be better served by limiting restroom access, it doesn't make me mad. I'm not going to stop going there." But Skinner said he also doesn't mind when homeless people occasionally visit his local Starbucks, and he sometimes offers to buy them breakfast. "I think about all the people who don't have housing who would love to wander into a Starbucks and get warm," he said. "Now there's one more place they aren't welcome." This article was provided by The Associated Press.