A plea for a bathroom break

02/28/2007

BY RACHEL E. STASSEN-BERGER
Pioneer Press


Seventeen-year-old Bridget Aldritt asked senators to imagine themselves in her shoes Tuesday.

"Just imagine that you are a teenage girl. You are out shopping with your friends in the mall. And all of a sudden, you need to go to the bathroom, like now. You can't wait. You have to go. You are sitting there in absolutely excruciating pain and discomfort," Aldritt told a Senate committee. "You go up to an employee … and they say, 'No. Our bathroom is only for employees.' "

Aldritt has ulcerative colitis, which causes rectal ulcers. Sufferers need to go to the bathroom urgently and frequently.

"It's absolutely humiliating," she said.

To help her and about 35,000 Minnesotans with serious medical conditions that reduce their control over their bowels, the Senate commerce committee on Tuesday passed the Restroom Access Act.

The measure would require retail stores to let medically needy people use their restrooms, even if the restrooms aren't intended for the public. It would waive civil liability for the stores, and employees who refuse to let such folks use their facilities could be charged with petty misdemeanors and up to a $100 fine.

Mike Hickey, Minnesota director for the National Federation of Independent Business, told senators there might not be a need for such a law.

"It's hard to understand how somebody could deny someone bathroom access," Hickey said. "It would be nice to know what's the actual need here."

Michael Brodkorb, a self-described Republican blogger, took his objection to the bill even further — he renamed it the Freedom to Poop Act.

"In my heart of hearts, I just don't believe that we need legislation that dictates that level of involvement in businesses," he said. Simple human decency, he believes, would require that businesses make their restrooms available to those in need.

But Jim Fennell says people in need have been turned away from using nonpublic store restrooms.

"Many times, people are refused and embarrassing things happen," said Fennell, regional executive director of the Crohn's and Colitis Foundation of America.

His organization gives members cards to help them plead their cases with those less than willing to share their restroom facilities.

The card reads: "I CAN'T WAIT. THANK YOU FOR UNDERSTANDING. The bearer of this card has a special medical condition that requires him/her to use bathroom facilities urgently. Thank you for your cooperation.''