...to deal with a potential health and safety issue rather than dealing with what's in curbside garbage bags.
Toronto's got some loser loos
When you gotta go in this city, the choices are a crap shoot.
If you’re lucky enough to be near an upscale mall or fancy hotel, you’re sitting pretty on a gleaming porcelain throne, with thick toilet paper and French-scented soap.
If you’re a man who’s just spilled out of a club in the Entertainment District, with nary a public toilet in sight, chances are you’ve opted for the dark alley solution.
And if you happen to be riding the, ahem, Better Way, we suggest holding it in. Or Depends.
There’s a dearth of decent public loos in Toronto. This spring, we’re finally supposed to get the first of 20 state-of-the-art toilets from Astral Media Outdoor, the kind that will cost $1 and automatically self-clean the floors, sinks and toilets after each use.
In the meantime, Cintas Canada Ltd. is seeking nominations (www.bestrestroom.com) for its first annual Canada’s Best Restroom Award — which got us thinking: “Since we are the centre of the universe, how do we fare in the dump department?”
It didn’t take long to flush out Toronto Sun readers on Toronto’s best and worst bathrooms.
“This may go without saying but I think we all know the TTC’s are a shoo-in for worst,” notes Daniel William D. Rodrigues
On thebathroomdiaries.com, a travellers’ guide to international toilets, both Bloor/Yonge and Finch subways are rated “horrible” with “CSI-episode worthy” style.
“TTC, Yonge & Bloor, hands down,” agrees torontosun.com reader Robert Laszcz. “I’d rather crap myself than use it ever again.”
“By far the worst is the one at Kennedy station (women’s),” writes Nancy Martin. “This is the fault of the public. Animals are cleaner!”
A weekend visit finds a flooded stall and a lovely piece of bloodied toilet paper wedged into the hand dryer.
“Union station, lower level near hallway to ACC,” insists Terry Snell. “Stinks like no other !”
Frances Smith, though, has praise for the loos at Union. “The stalls are nice and roomy, and there actually are coat hooks, and the floors are clean and dry. It’s not high class, perhaps, but very well-kept.”
Not so at the notorious Kipling station.
Of the three blue cubicles, one is locked and the other is flooded by a homicide’s-worth of bloody toilet paper. It’s enough to make you gag.
“This is well-known as ‘the pit stop of last resort’,” writes Smith. “It stinks, you’re ankle-deep in tissue (but there’s none in the holder, if there even is a holder attached to the wall), flushing seems to be a lost art, no coat hooks, sometimes no lock that works (one time I was there, there was even no door on one of the stalls!), the single hand dryer doesn’t work, the taps that work spray water almost horizontally so you drench your front but your hands stay dry.
“One of the sinks (I had the misfortune to resort to visiting the place last week) is draped in a plastic garbage bag — did I mention that smell is almost visible? “A blind person would have no trouble finding it, but having entered, would probably wonder why the TTC had a pigsty on its premises.”
Selima Bashir agrees. She commutes from Brampton and has the misfortune of having to use the Kipling station bathroom when nature calls.
“They are always, always deplorable. It irks me to see the terrible conditions the washrooms are when TTC fares keep going up and up.”
The bathrooms in the city’s old hockey arenas are never a treat, especially at the end of the day. Venturing into a restroom on Spadina Ave. is always a daunting proposition. Ed Almeida votes the Bellevue Square park toilets in Kensington Market as the city’s stinkiest. “Local shoppers refuse to go in there,” he writes. “The King of Kensington Al Waxman would not approve.”
But relief is in sight.
Bayview Village gets top marks for its posh new chandelier-lit facilities with soap from Belles de Provence. Bring a book and you can stay for hours.
Yorkdale’s renovated bathrooms captured a prize for its “spa-like” ambience, the Princess of Wales theatre is renowned for its waterfall faucets and This is London nightclub is praised for having a makeup artist and hairstylist on hand.
Ah, plumbing for the truth. It’s a dirty job but someone’s got to do it.
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