New stall tactics employed
DOWNTOWN — Starting today, visitors to the Promenade can go to the bathroom in peace.
As part of a pilot program, City Hall plans to spend between $50,000 and $75,000 this summer to staff two bathrooms off of the Third Street Promenade with attendants. The idea is to make sure the bathrooms aren’t abused, as they have been in the past. Without constant supervision, many people have used the bathrooms to do drugs, have sex or wash themselves, particularly those living on the streets.
“It’s not how much they were used, it was how they were used,” said Miriam Mack, manager of City Hall’s economic development department.
As a result, the general public has shied away from using the bathrooms — located adjacent from the elevators in parking structures throughout downtown. As an alternative, people oftentimes use restaurants along the Promenade, even if they aren’t customers. Many patrons in bookstores and coffee shops are turned away altogether, with the establishments no longer offering restrooms to customers as a result of having the same problems with which the city has been dealing.
“You have no idea how pleased I am to be able to send people somewhere now,” said Kathleen Rawson, executive director of the Bayside District Corp., which manages downtown Santa Monica in conjunction with City Hall.
The renovated bathrooms will be staffed by attendants from 9 a.m. to midnight. The attendants — employees from City Hall’s solid waste division — will wear polo shirts and oxfords to indicate their status. They also will be asking bathroom visitors to fill out surveys detailing their experience.
But more importantly, said Mack, they will be on hand to “discourage bad behavior.”
If deemed successful, city officials will look at how they might be able to fund permanent attendants for a new central bathroom facility in parking structure No. 4. That project will include a total of 26 stalls — 13 each for men and women — as part of a $5 million retrofit for the entire parking structure, which is expected to be completed in 2007, Mack said.
“We are going to look at the effectiveness of the attendants and how the public uses the restrooms,” she said.
The men’s bathroom is located in parking structure No. 3, just behind the food court between Arizona Avenue and Wilshire Boulevard, between Fourth Street and the Promenade. The women’s bathroom, located in parking structure No. 4, is located between Arizona Avenue and Wilshire Boulevard, between Second Street and the Promenade, just behind the Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf.
Each of the facilities have two stalls and will be open with attendants through Sept. 9, Mack said.
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on July 1, 2006. Read the original PDF.