Beach bathrooms brutal: Levy
Washrooms at Kew ... P.U., a sign of a city that doesn't work
Last Updated: July 19, 2010 7:31pm
Michael Visser was walking along the Boardwalk with his wife two Sunday evenings ago when he decided to pop into the washrooms at Kew Beach.
What he encountered was so appalling he complained to the city’s parks and recreation department and to the local councillor, Sandra Bussin.
“The (men’s) washroom was filthy, badly maintained and incredibly run-down,” he wrote in his July 6 e-mail to both parks and rec officials and Bussin. “I have seen better public washrooms in Third World countries.”
Other than cursory replies from Bussin’s office — asking if he is a resident of her ward (he is not) — and from parks promising to get back to him, Visser heard nothing until Monday afternoon after I contacted parks officials and Bussin herself.
When I met him at the washrooms in question Monday morning, little had changed.
They were, to put it bluntly, downright skanky.
Where a sink once was in the women’s washroom, there were screws and pipes poking out from the wall — a definite safety hazard. The other sink basin was black and rusty from age.
In one washroom stall, the industrial-looking toilet continued to flow onto the cracked concrete floor after flushing.
The urinals in the men’s loo were rusty and black from age, too, as were the sinks.
Outside the washrooms, the trash cans were nearly full — with melted ice cream dripping from one.
When we arrived, a city parks employee was heard loudly chatting on his cell phone about an upcoming golfing date and then spotted yakking for 10 minutes with the lady staffing the equally seedy-looking Kew Beach concession.
As our photographer was snapping pictures, a 4x4 parks and rec truck with two other employees in it — and loaded with green garbage bags — ventured by. After stopping to look at what we were doing, the truck took off down the Boardwalk.
“The washrooms are embarrassing,” said Beach resident Beth Bolton, down showing the area to visitors from out of town. “I’ve been in better toilets in northern Ontario.”
Visser figures the cost of renovating the washrooms is not that high considering the huge cost overruns on the $11-million Peter St. shelter — and is something that should have been done years ago.
He’s especially concerned that thousands of people taking in next weekend’s Beaches Jazz Festival will be forced to use them, however seedy they may be.
“It’s just that nobody cares and nobody looks after them,” he said. “It speaks a lot about the mismanagement of funds (at City Hall) and project mismanagement. This is just not acceptable.”
Andy Koropeski, acting director of parks, agrees the Kew Beach washrooms needed to be replaced years ago and the fixtures have “seen better days.”
He said they’re trying to focus on renovations to washrooms on the waterfront and hope to include this one in next year’s capital budget. The washrooms in Allen Gardens were completely redone last year — a renovation that cost $90,000, he added.
Bussin told me she was asking why brand new washrooms — a series of steps away from the washroom in question in a facility called the Boathouse — are locked.
“I’m furious that they are locked,” she said. “I want to know why.”
She said she’s managed to exact a community benefit of $200,000 from the TTC’s new $345-million Ashbridge’s Bay LRV storage facility to be used next year to refurbish the Beachfront.
Bussin said she will ask that some of the money be put toward upgrading the heavily used Kew Beach washrooms.
“They are deplorable,” she said. “I’m very, very unhappy about the state of the washrooms.”
Margaret Miall, visiting Canada from France, told me she’s spent the past three weeks touring Montreal, Halifax, New Brunswick and P.E.I., and Toronto is by far the “scruffiest” city they’ve seen.
The garbage and the empty bottles on the Beach are not nice and neither are the washrooms, she said.
“All of Canada we’ve seen has been absolutely spotless except for here,” Miall said. “Spend some money on it ... tidy it up.”
sue-ann.levy@sunmedia.ca
After 3,500 uses, automated toilet craps out
Last Updated: July 19, 2010 8:51pm
- Two months after first Toronto pay public toilet was installed at Rees St. and Queens Quay, it was out of service Monday. The City of Toronto claims it is the first time the public toilet malfunctioned. Irit Paz, visiting from Tel Aviv, Israel, goes through her change trying to access the public toilet. (JACK BOLAND/Toronto Sun)
Oh, crap!
The City of Toronto’s first automated public toilet was out of commission when the Sun stopped by Monday, two months since Mayor David Miller opened it amid much flushing fanfare.
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