New facility would be open 24 hours a day, seven days a week
Some city officials want to buy a downtown building that would serve as a centralized 24-hour public restroom.
City Real Estate Manager Mark Richter will ask the city council at its Oct. 22 meeting for permission to begin preliminary negotiations to purchase a property at 312-316 Santa Monica Blvd. that would serve as a Big Blue Bus information office, a bus driver break room and restroom facilities for mass transit riders and the general public.
By law, city officials must first get approval from the city council before they are allowed to enter into property negotiations.
“The site is adjacent to the busiest transit stop on the recently built transit mall, so this would be a preferred location for a site for services for transit riders and city bus drivers,” Richter said.
While officials say the building would be used for transit-related purposes, many say the facility also could be used to solve problems the city is having with its lack of public restrooms downtown.
Many believe the current six public restrooms, which are located in each of the downtown parking structures, are unsafe and often left in unsanitary conditions by homeless and transients who mainly use them.
“This is critical for all who visit our downtown,” said Mayor Mike Feinstein, who added that the commercial core is a public space and is not just for private business.
“Obviously this also has implications for those people who are unfortunately on the street, and providing them with a safe place to go as well,” he said.
The board of the Bayside District Corp., which manages downtown Santa Monica, recommended earlier this year that the city council close four of the six public restrooms located in the parking structures. Council members have not yet publicly discussed Bayside’s proposal.
“We want restrooms that aren’t just for the homeless but for all the people that come to Promenade,” said Councilman Herb Katz, a former chairman of the Bayside board. “The average tourist does-n’t know the bathrooms are in the parking structures and then when they get there they don’t want to use them.”
But the property owner where the city is considering a location for the bathrooms said he was not interested in selling his shops along Santa Monica Boulevard. Serious “Bob” Moini has repeatedly told city officials he would only consider leasing a storefront for a Big Blue Bus office.
He said Wednesday was the first he heard that his property may be used as a centralized restroom facility.
“The only approach they have come to with the landlord is that they want to make it into a bus stop office,” said commercial realtor Barbara Tenzer, who represents Moini’s property. “It would be very sneaky of them to say that, and then make it into a public restroom facility.”
“He would be more than happy to lease it to them as a bus location, where you buy tickets and information, but not as public bathrooms,” she added.
Richter said city officials had spoken with Moini, who owns Dee’s Diner, only to discuss generally what he would like to do with the property. If Moini does not want to sell, city officials would not attempt to force the transaction to go through, he said.
“They are considering selling it,” Richter said. “If they do conclude that they would like to sell it, we would like (the ability) to talk to them about it.”
Supporters of a downtown bathroom facility say it would be easier for police to patrol and for maintenance workers to monitor and keep clean.
“We don’t want a place where people wash their clothes and wash their feet in the sink and all that kind of stuff,” Katz said. “What we do want is a safe, clean environment where anyone downtown can go.”
And supporters want the new facility to be open 24 hours to give people an alternative to relieving themselves on public streets at night. Katz said the city needs to open another all-day restroom facility at the beach as well.
Opening a new restroom facility would seem to conflict with a recent ordinance adopted by the city council, which forbids the homeless from sleeping in the doorways of downtown businesses from 11 p.m. to 7 a.m. The council passed the ordinance in response to complaints from business owners of public urination and defecation.
City officials are proposing to keep the new facility open all-night, unlike other public restrooms downtown, to accommodate the homeless and encourage them not to relieve themselves publicly.
But at the same time, the homeless are now forbidden from sleeping anywhere near the downtown area where the new restroom facility is being proposed.
However, Feinstein argues the council wrote the ordinance in a way that made the sleeping ban optional. Those business that don’t mind the homeless’ presence on their private property could allow it to continue, he said.
“I hope seeing that we will have these bathroom facilities, I hope that some property owners will continue to be generous in ways they have in the past, knowing that it won’t cost them in cleanliness and comfort the way it did before,” he added.
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on October 17, 2002. Read the original PDF.