A freestanding, coin-operated pay toilet stall in Paris.

A pay toilet is a public toilet that costs money to use. It may be street furniture or be inside a building, e.g. a mall, department store, railway station, restaurant, etc. The reason of charging money for using toilets usually is for the maintenance of the equipment. Image File history File links pay toilet, paris. ... Image File history File links pay toilet, paris. ... City flag City coat of arms Motto: Fluctuat nec mergitur (Latin: Tossed by the waves, she does not sink) Paris Eiffel tower as seen from the esplanade du Trocadéro. ... Toilet found in a Boeing 747 aircraft A toilet is a plumbing fixture and disposal system primarily intended for the disposal of the bodily wastes: urine, fecal matter and vomit. ... Economics offers various definitions for money, though it is now commonly defined by the functions attached to any good or token that functions in trade as a medium of exchange, store of value, and unit of account. ... Street furniture is a collective term for objects and pieces of equipment installed on streets and roads for various purposes, including benches, bollards, post boxes, phone boxes, streetlamps, street lighting, traffic lights, traffic signs, bus stops, grit bins, tram stops, taxi stands, public lavatories, fountains and memorials, and waste receptacles. ... Look up Mall in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... The interior of a typical Macys department store. ... Passengers bustle around the typical grand edifice of Londons Broad Street Station in 1865. ... Toms Restaurant, a restaurant in New York made familiar by Suzanne Vega and the television sitcom Seinfeld A restaurant is an establishment that serves prepared food and beverages to order, to be consumed on the premises. ...

The practice of charging for use of public toilets is the origin of the British euphemism for urination, "to spend a penny."

Modern times

Pay toilets are not uncommon in Europe. Paris, in particular, makes heavy use of them; the streets of the city are forested with self-cleaning, coin-op booths (landmarks like Sacre-Coeur generally have several). Riders on the Metro may encounter coin-op bathrooms in the underground stations; and even non-mechanized bathrooms occasionally have attendants who expect tips. Some service stations offer a coupon equal in value to the amount paid for use of a toilet, redeemable for other goods at that station or others in the same chain. A rapid transit, underground, subway, tube, elevated, or metro(politan) system is a railway — usually in an urban area — with a high capacity and frequency of service, and grade separation from other traffic. ...

The use of pay toilets has been made illegal by some municipalities. A campaign by the Committee to End Pay Toilets In America (CEPTIA) resulted in laws against pay toilets being enacted in a number of cities and states in the mid-1970s.^{[citation needed]}, making pay toilets almost unknown in America. Around that time, most restroom owners found they were losing more money due to stolen pay boxes than they made. In other locations, public restrooms must have one free toilet for every 4 to 5 pay toilets. // America usually means either: The Americas, the lands and regions of the Western hemisphere, usually divided into North America and South America The United States of America. ...

In the past, some businesses used the payment system to limit access to toilets, and this is still accomplished by use of a key system for patrons only and outright denial of access to the wider public. In most areas, this is illegal for public (stadiums, for example) and government buildings.

In the United Kingdom it is technically permitted to charge for use of toilets, but not for the use of urinals.

Pay toilets on the streets may provide urinals free of charge to prevent public urination.

History

Ancient times

The earliest public toilets were set up in Knossos of the Minoan civilization in the Crete island, now part of Greece^{[citation needed]}. However, the earliest pay toilets were erected in Ancient Rome in 74 AD during the rule of Vespasian, after a civil war in Rome affected Roman finance. The Emperor's initiative was derided by his adversaries; his son Titus even criticised him, to which Vespasian replied by holding up a coin from the first collection to his son's nose and asking him whether its smell offended him. Titus responded negatively, to which Vespasian replied "e lotio est" ("And yet it comes from urine"). See also Toilet for the lavatory Public toilet is a movie from the Hong Kong director Fruit Chan. ... A portion of Arthur Evans reconstruction of the Minoan palace at Knossos. ... The Minoans (Greek: Μυκηναίοι; Μινωίτες) were a pre-Hellenic Bronze Age civilization in Crete in the Aegean Sea, flourishing from approximately 2700 to 1450 BC when their culture was superseded by the Mycenaean culture, which drew upon the Minoans. ... For the famous World War II battle, see: Battle of Crete For other uses, see Crete (disambiguation). ... For other uses, see number 74. ... Imperator Caesar Vespasianus Augustus (November 17, 9–June 23, 79), known originally as Titus Flavius Vespasianus and usually referred to in English as Vespasian, was emperor of Rome from 69 to 79. ...

Middle Ages

In some cities during the Middle Ages, there were sellers of public toilets who were equipped with a large cloak and a bucket. For a fee, one could use the bucket while hidden by the cloak.

References

• Bathroom Blues

• Suetonius - The Lives of the Twelve Caesars, VIII, Vespasian XXIII