City should use powers to push for more: Moscoe

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Public washrooms and water fountains should be easily accessible in large department stores, grocery stores and pharmacies - and if they're not, the city should use its clout under the City of Toronto Act to force the issue, says Howard Moscoe, the chair of Toronto's Licensing and Standards Committee.

"Seniors hang out in drug stores," said Moscoe, who represents Ward 15 (Eglinton-Lawrence) on Toronto Council. "As I've become a senior I've become increasingly aware of the need to find restroom facilities. So we should use the powers we have under the City of Toronto Act to mandate washrooms and drinking fountains in public places that don't have them."

Moscoe will be bringing the matter to the June meeting of Toronto's Licensing and Standards Committee. In a two-page memo to the committee, he points out that major pharmacies and supermarkets frequently provide no washroom facilities, because unlike restaurants, they're not required to do so.

But Moscoe argues that the city's aging population will find itself more and more in need of washroom facilities in the coming years, and the city ought to require both those and water fountains.

And it's not, he insisted in an interview, only big stores. The National Trade Centre at the CNE, he said, has only one water fountain.

"The Trade Centre is a disgrace," he said. "It has one drinking fountain for the entire place because they want to force you to spend $4 for a bottle of water."

Moscoe will be asking city staff to report on ways to mandate washrooms and water fountains in newly constructed public spaces, consulting with health, building and legal officials in doing so.