A religious organization sued the city of San Francisco to remove an open-air urinal from a popular park that it calls unsanitary and indecent.
The Chinese Christian Union of SF filed a civil complaint last week demanding the city remove the concrete circular urinal from iconic Dolores Park.
The group says the urinal, which is out in the open and screened only with plants for privacy, "emanates offensive odors," ''has no hand-washing facilities" and "it's offensive to manners and morals."
— AP
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12 Comments
OK, no. The offensive odors are all in one place, rather than on random street corners that you come upon unexpectedly. This place can be avoided. It's far more offensive to manners and morals to have people peeing all over random street corners. And the handwashing thing can be solved with a wall-mounted hand sanitizer unit, tho one wonders how many men wash their hands after peeing, anyway.
Also, that guy is standing on the wrong side, yes?
"A religious organization..."
pfff, since when is anyone with that description in their name relevant to anything anymore.
I'd use these all the time.
Well, for argument's sake I'd point out that the 'religious' aspect of this group is totally irrelevant to the article and complaint; that just happens to be their collective association as a group.
Two things come to mind here:
1) This is incredibly common all through Europe, and has been for a long time. It seems to line up quite closely to the liberal vibe of SF as well; however...
2) This looks like it has been placed in a ridiculously open area, front and centre to everything. I mean, I get the need for this, but aren't they typically put into smaller, semi-private corners off of main plaza areas? Or beyond much more extensive screening? Granted Ive never been to SF, and so have no idea what the surrounding context is, but damn... that is really putting it out there.
According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, the Chinese Christian Union of San Francisco (the religious group in question) is considered an anti-LGBT hate group. Strong words that, if true, give me a mild case of schadenfreude.
@Bench -- you're correct, it's definitely in the open. In fact, Muni rolls right past it...
All things considered I'd say this pissoir had the best intentions, but could have been executed with a little more consideration.
wait, so if i pee does that mean i'm gay? stuff that used to make sense just doesn't make any sense anymore. i'm getting too old for this.
peeing in the open-air is most definitely "pursuit of happiness" I don't think this hate group can infringe on that right. Let's hope the courts agree!
What is it about Americans & public toilets? What's so hard about providing a private sanitary place?
Paris
^Carrera, I've used outdoor urinals like the one in SF in french cities and elsewhere in Europe ... some places even have large 20+ stall joint-sex washrooms too.
Why are people even listening when a hate-group complains? Can we not line up a few hundred folks to "test" the new installation in protest?
Carrera, because here we are terrified any enclosed space will be used to smoke crack or shoot up. God forbid people do drugs.
There they just provide syringe disposal and sanitary facilities and let them have at it if that's what they want to use the toilets for.
I was under the impression that the whole city of SF was an open-air toilet.
^Agree. Americans have to be the most uptight people on earth….they just went through a dog & cat fight around here about taking a drink out of a bar onto the street…a country founded by puritans, always will be puritans….hypocritical puritans at best.
@Carrera @Non Sequitur @archanonymous -- SF has 25 public self-cleaning toilets distributed around high-traffic areas (typically above ground near BART stops), and the initiative was actually inspired by the Parisian toilets. Unfortunately they've become a maintenance nightmare, and the City is dropping about a million a year on potty-sitters -- people paid up to $16 an hour to "ensure that they are kept available for people who need a restroom, not a place to shoot up or turn tricks."
http://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/matier-ross/article/City-s-latrine-team-tries-to-keep-public-6479253.php
I don't know enough if Portland's public loo is considered a success, but I would love for someone to solve this problem...
@gwharton -- Almost but not quite. Pretty heavily concentrated in the TL and the Mission (no surprise).
http://www.citylab.com/housing/2015/10/mapping-san-franciscos-sidewalk-pooping-problem/409561/
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