The Irony of the Bathroom Boondoggle
Posted May 20 at 5:43 pm by Mark Fefer
No ads allowed here.
What's gone mostly unmentioned in the coverage of city council's decision to ditch the "expensive" public toilets is that these toilets CAN pay for themselves. In fact, they've been working quite well up in Canada apparently. But, as SPU's own report notes, you have to allow advertising on them, which our city's ridiculous sign ordinance prohibits. What makes this all the more absurd is that, as our Damon Agnos reported a couple weeks ago, that ordinance is being routinely flouted all over town by advertisers like Starbucks. There are giant, and clearly-unlawful, ads on the sides of buildings all over Seattle, especially downtown. And yet we can't provide public toilets for homeless drug addicts because of an obscure ordinance that the richest members of society are ignoring?
Plenty of ads allowed here.
Topics: News
Comments
The other sad part of the sign ordinance being flouted in Belltown is the destruction of the old painted advertisements (like the one for camoing equipment you can see in the above photo) that once gave the neighborhood an important part of its character.
On the side of the building that houses Cyclops, there used to be a fantastic old Coke/7-Up sign, with two generations of painted ads fading surrealistically into each other. When it was covered up by an ad for some overpriced vodka, Cyclops responded by no longer stocking that brand.
Posted May 21 at 11:27 am by davidstoesz