Walmart Restrooms Closed, Porta Potties Brought In

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Alpha8472
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Walmart Restrooms Closed, Porta Potties Brought In

Post by Alpha8472 »

I was at a Walmart Neighborhood Market in San Ramon, California and both of the restrooms were closed. There were several Porta-potties out front. It was awful with bugs inside and it smelled. However, one Porta-potty was very spacious with a nice translucent roof so it was not totally dark inside. They also had foot pump operated plastic sinks outside.

This was a 1990s era Albertsons at one time. Then it converted to Ralphs. The shoplifters take merchandise into the bathrooms and remove the packaging. Then they put the merchandise in their clothes and flush the packaging. The plumbing gets really clogged. This is a major problem at every Walmart.
Last edited by Alpha8472 on September 10th, 2022, 7:55 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Walmart Restrooms Closed, Porta Potties Brought In

Post by HCal »

Oh no, Walmart is having "plumbing problems" :lol: :lol: :lol:
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Re: Walmart Restrooms Closed, Porta Potties Brought In

Post by BillyGr »

Alpha8472 wrote: September 9th, 2022, 10:42 pm I was at a Walmart Neighborhood Market in San Ramon, California and both of the restrooms were closed. There were several Porta-potties out front. It was awful with bugs inside and it smelled. However, one Porta-potty was very spacious with a nice translucent roof so it was not totally dark inside. They also had foot pump operated plastic sinks outside.

This was a 1990s era Albertsons at one time. Then it converted to Ralphs. The shoplifters take merchandise into the bathrooms and remove the packaging. Then they put the merchandise in their clothes and flush the packaging. The plumbing gets really clogged. This is a major problem at every Walmart.
Didn't Kmart (of all chains) solve that issue about 40+ years ago?

Lock restroom door, require customer to be buzzed in by someone at the desk (they often did it with layaway, but Walmart has restrooms near service desks in many stores). If someone has merchandise, they will not be allowed in - thus doing what you suggest would be impossible!
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Re: Walmart Restrooms Closed, Porta Potties Brought In

Post by Alpha8472 »

Sadly, Walmart is so cheap that they probably would not even spare one employee to let people into the bathroom. Many of these San Francisco Bay Area Walmarts are wall to wall people and have lines at the restrooms.

Walmart might be suffering from so much theft via the restrooms that they may install outdoor restrooms at more stores. The plumbing problems have been said to be 30,000 dollars. It is an ongoing maintenance problem at many stores.

I know some Ross stores buzz people into the restrooms. Some Jack In The Box restaurants do the same.
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Re: Walmart Restrooms Closed, Porta Potties Brought In

Post by Super S »

BillyGr wrote: September 10th, 2022, 5:30 pm
Alpha8472 wrote: September 9th, 2022, 10:42 pm I was at a Walmart Neighborhood Market in San Ramon, California and both of the restrooms were closed. There were several Porta-potties out front. It was awful with bugs inside and it smelled. However, one Porta-potty was very spacious with a nice translucent roof so it was not totally dark inside. They also had foot pump operated plastic sinks outside.

This was a 1990s era Albertsons at one time. Then it converted to Ralphs. The shoplifters take merchandise into the bathrooms and remove the packaging. Then they put the merchandise in their clothes and flush the packaging. The plumbing gets really clogged. This is a major problem at every Walmart.
Didn't Kmart (of all chains) solve that issue about 40+ years ago?

Lock restroom door, require customer to be buzzed in by someone at the desk (they often did it with layaway, but Walmart has restrooms near service desks in many stores). If someone has merchandise, they will not be allowed in - thus doing what you suggest would be impossible!
Kmart did in fact do this. And, the buzz-in setup disappeared as stores were remodeled.

I have seen Target bring in restroom trailers during store remodels where the main restrooms are being redone. But I have yet to see a store bring these in due to the shoplifting issues. Kinda surprised this isn't happening yet around Portland.
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Re: Walmart Restrooms Closed, Porta Potties Brought In

Post by babs »

Super S wrote: September 11th, 2022, 8:20 am
BillyGr wrote: September 10th, 2022, 5:30 pm
Alpha8472 wrote: September 9th, 2022, 10:42 pm I was at a Walmart Neighborhood Market in San Ramon, California and both of the restrooms were closed. There were several Porta-potties out front. It was awful with bugs inside and it smelled. However, one Porta-potty was very spacious with a nice translucent roof so it was not totally dark inside. They also had foot pump operated plastic sinks outside.

This was a 1990s era Albertsons at one time. Then it converted to Ralphs. The shoplifters take merchandise into the bathrooms and remove the packaging. Then they put the merchandise in their clothes and flush the packaging. The plumbing gets really clogged. This is a major problem at every Walmart.
Didn't Kmart (of all chains) solve that issue about 40+ years ago?

Lock restroom door, require customer to be buzzed in by someone at the desk (they often did it with layaway, but Walmart has restrooms near service desks in many stores). If someone has merchandise, they will not be allowed in - thus doing what you suggest would be impossible!
Kmart did in fact do this. And, the buzz-in setup disappeared as stores were remodeled.

I have seen Target bring in restroom trailers during store remodels where the main restrooms are being redone. But I have yet to see a store bring these in due to the shoplifting issues. Kinda surprised this isn't happening yet around Portland.
I was just at the mini Target in Portland on Powell street that has a call button to be let into the bathroom. Also a sign that the bathroom is only available between 8 am and 6 pm.
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Re: Walmart Restrooms Closed, Porta Potties Brought In

Post by storewanderer »

Many Wal Marts were built with "doorless" restrooms (to enable touchless experience for customer- until you need to use the soap dispenser; you have to touch that...).

Some Wal Marts have a door on the restrooms in the back (old layaway area) but then no door on the ones at the front wall. Some of the stores when they were 24 hours would lock the back restrooms after a certain time with a padlock.

I have seen more and more retailers locking restrooms lately in urban areas only. Many new stores opened in urban areas in the 00's and 10's had the restrooms on the sales floor to be consistent with suburban locations (vs. older urban stores where the restrooms were in the back or hidden from customer view). Some retailers in urban areas started to unlock the restrooms in the 00's and 10's for customer convenience reasons. It is a major hassle for basically everyone involved. With labor so short, it is difficult to monitor/unlock the restrooms. Given many shoplifter groups work in teams it would not be hard for someone to be let into the restroom then just open it right back up for their companion shoplifter to walk into as they are walking out (and with how short staffed stores are, who is watching people going in and out? nobody- only time someone watches is if they are called to let someone go in). So I do not think at this point in time locking restrooms is for the purpose of theft prevention.

At fast food places the restrooms are locked because this is a target for vandalism and homeless (they are easy to get into, you don't have to walk 5 minutes to get to the restroom) and also for safety reasons to prevent loitering or prevent people from remaining inside the building after closing. Fast food places have suffered very serious costs from restroom vandalism and it disrupts the operation significantly when restrooms are vandalized and out of service. Also in the fast food places with single stall restrooms if someone is loitering and shooting up and occupies the stall for 30-40 minutes this creates a significant problem for both employees and paying customers. The employees are the ones who really pay the cost of this- not only do they have to deal with inadequate facilities but they also have to clean up the mess.

The bigger reason to lock the restrooms is to prevent vandalism and other issues from taking place. I see restrooms being locked not necessarily in high theft stores necessarily but in "high incident" stores with large homeless populations near the stores who would go into the restrooms and shoot themselves up then leave the needles there. Even when stores provided proper disposal units for the needles in the restrooms, some of these individuals refused to use those disposal units. Given Wal Mart has relatively few urban stores and they are very large, long walk, large parking lot, the restrooms are busy with customers/employees going in and out constantly, the homeless folks are generally not comfortable going into a Wal Mart restroom and shooting up.
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Re: Walmart Restrooms Closed, Porta Potties Brought In

Post by Alpha8472 »

You will be surprised. In the San Francisco Bay Area there are homeless people who use the restrooms to bathe and do personal grooming in addition to leaving used needles.

Seriously, the homeless people have trashed the restrooms even in the suburbs of the Bay Area. The homeless have migrated to the suburbs by hopping on trains. The toilets are all clogged with waste, trash, and I have even seen toilets dislocated. These homeless are mentally unstable.

It looks like putting in Porta-potties is to prevent the $30,000 plumbing problems. It is cheaper to rent Porta-potties than pay plumbers to unclog the toilets every week. It is out of control. The floors are covered in sewage and the drains are overflowing in other parts of the stores.

I went to a Sprouts and their restrooms were closed too. The homeless are ruining the bathrooms even in formerly affluent suburbs.
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Re: Walmart Restrooms Closed, Porta Potties Brought In

Post by storewanderer »

Alpha8472 wrote: September 11th, 2022, 12:11 pm You will be surprised. In the San Francisco Bay Area there are homeless people who use the restrooms to bathe and do personal grooming in addition to leaving used needles.

Seriously, the homeless people have trashed the restrooms even in the suburbs of the Bay Area. The homeless have migrated to the suburbs by hopping on trains. The toilets are all clogged with waste, trash, and I have even seen toilets dislocated. These homeless are mentally unstable.

It looks like putting in Porta-potties is to prevent the $30,000 plumbing problems. It is cheaper to rent Porta-potties than pay plumbers to unclog the toilets every week. It is out of control. The floors are covered in sewage and the drains are overflowing in other parts of the stores.

People have used public restrooms for personal grooming for a long time. I have seen store employees do that as well. There could be a variety of reasons for people to do this including a dental appointment soon, a long night, unexpected travel delays, etc. I have seen homeless do this too, that is true.

So it seems any store that is near the mass transit trains is going to have these mitigation tactics in place with locked restrooms and such. That makes sense actually.

I am just not sure chains moving to those disposable toilets on a long term basis is going to work. This is the type of thing that causes shoppers to not have a comfortable shopping experience (translation- stay at the store less time and spend less money). If they provide a portable sink with water out front at least that will hopefully promote hand washing. There are also some issues with disabled customers being able to access those units and many CA chains already got in legal trouble for non-compliant non-ADA accessible restrooms before... I used one of those portables last month at a hiking trail (no hand washing unit provided outside), it was 90 degrees out, and there were hundreds of flies in there, it was a terrible experience. I knew what I was getting into but... very bad. I used napkins to open/close the unit and had a lot of hand sanitizer to use when I got out but the odor was with me for an hour after...
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Re: Walmart Restrooms Closed, Porta Potties Brought In

Post by Alpha8472 »

Luckily, there were handicapped super-sized Porta-potties out front. They were big enough for wheelchairs. There were multiple sinks with plenty of water. It was decent.

CVS and Walgreens are notorious for closing their restrooms to the public in the San Francisco Bay Area. CVS and Walgreens often say restrooms are closed at night. Sometimes they claim that they are out of order all day. It is obvious that employees are using them.

I think it might be necessary to have restrooms with doors on the outside of the building. That way there is no way to use them for shoplifting. That will reduce all of the packaging being flushed down the toilets.
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