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The Ridiculously Inspiring Story of Free Public Restrooms, Part Two: The Rise of CEPTIA · Ridiculous History

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  Speaker 1: Ridiculous History is a production of iHeartRadio. Welcome back to
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: the show, fellow Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always, so
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: much for tuning in. We got some big Friday need
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  Speaker 1: de p energy. We're gonna introduce our super producer, mister
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  Speaker 1: Max Williams.
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  Speaker 2: Whoa, whoa Max, the gap under the stall Williams.
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  Speaker 1: There it goes. That's none other than the legendary No Brown.
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  Speaker 2: No, the Brown sound Brown from Browntown.
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  Speaker 1: I love her rhyme. No they called me, they called
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  Speaker 1: me bawl bull you No, that's good. I thought it
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  Speaker 1: was good.
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  Speaker 2: Toilet bowl. Well, that's just putting a hat on a hat, Max,
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  Speaker 2: that's just putting a hat.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's a part too far, And we know how
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  Speaker 1: that goes. But thinking goes so as always, folks, we
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  Speaker 1: want to let you know this is a two part series.
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  Speaker 1: We looked around not too long ago, Noel, Max and
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  Speaker 1: yours truly, and we said, hey, why did people have
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  Speaker 1: to pay to poop? And why don't they have to
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  Speaker 1: pay to poop now? In the United States, Nola's you'll
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  Speaker 1: recall there was a band aid solution to this great
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  Speaker 1: sanitation problem in centuries past. For this emergent nation and
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  Speaker 1: eventually the country arrived at the idea of pay toilets.
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  Speaker 1: You had to have a dime in your hand to
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  Speaker 1: get the poop or the pee out of you. Uh.
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  Speaker 1: People beat me here, Max, do a fart sound instead
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  Speaker 1: of a beep if you could. People fucking hated it.
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  Speaker 2: They really hated it. There was an absolute backlash from
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  Speaker 2: the public. It's sort of like paywalls for podcasts. You know,
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  Speaker 2: it's really hard to ask people to pay for something
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  Speaker 2: that they have historically gotten for free.
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  Speaker 1: One hundred percent. And this is the big This is
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  Speaker 1: the big turn of the commode, and it will keep it.
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  Speaker 1: This is a big turn of the commode in our
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  Speaker 1: series here all this irritation over like you described, noel,
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  Speaker 1: over having something free become a paid thing. All of
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  Speaker 1: this led to action and one of the most ridiculous
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  Speaker 1: inspiring movements, not bowel movements, came from a young Dayton,
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  Speaker 1: Ohio native named Ira gessel And. At the time, in
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  Speaker 1: nineteen seventy, our buddy Ira is just nineteen years old.
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  Speaker 2: Boy was he committed to sanitation? Ira at nineteen the
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  Speaker 2: tender age launched a crusade that grew into a national
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  Speaker 2: grassroots phenomenon, the Committee to End Pay Toilets in America
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  Speaker 2: or Septia, which every time I look at it, it
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  Speaker 2: makes me think of those captures that you see, you know,
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  Speaker 2: at the bottom of webbe What an interesting thing to
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  Speaker 2: get up in arms about at the age of nineteen.
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  Speaker 1: It's so weird, right. His younger brother Michael Gessel, joins
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  Speaker 1: the cause, as well as two of their high school chums,
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  Speaker 1: Steve Freuken and Natalie Precker, and their aim was simple
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  Speaker 1: and ambitious. They said, quote, we are going to eliminate
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  Speaker 1: pay toilets in the United States through legislation and public pressure.
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  Speaker 1: These kids did not have a ton of money. They
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  Speaker 1: did love the press. Ira Gessel would to the media
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  Speaker 1: and say something along the lines of what you and
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  Speaker 1: I complained about in part one of this series. He said,
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  Speaker 1: you could have a fifty dollars bill, but you don't
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  Speaker 1: have a dime, and that metal box is between you
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  Speaker 1: and relief.
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  Speaker 2: He was pissed, and the gang was inspired by the
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  Speaker 2: Pennsylvania Turnpike, which at the time was super infamous for
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  Speaker 2: its pay toilets. The stalls were outfitted with these specialized locks,
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  Speaker 2: and most of them were manufactured by a particular company
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  Speaker 2: called nicke O lock that required a dime, and only
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  Speaker 2: a dime, since no change was given. You know, picture
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  Speaker 2: like one of those gumball machines. There's a little coin
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  Speaker 2: slot that will only take a certain size coin and
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  Speaker 2: you turn the thing and this one will literally use
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  Speaker 2: that to trigger the locking mechanism. So in order to
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  Speaker 2: unlock the stall, you had to put in a dime
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  Speaker 2: and only a dime, turn the thing and then you
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  Speaker 2: could get access. In late nineteen sixty eight, at a
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  Speaker 2: Hojo remember Hojo, Howard Johnson along the Turnpike, Ira and
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  Speaker 2: Mike Well Guessel decided that they had had enough.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, I guess the boys were out of dimes. Michael Gessel,
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  Speaker 1: who is the younger brother, would later say, we thought
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  Speaker 1: we could do something about it. Now, could we really
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  Speaker 1: do something about it? At the time, we were in
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  Speaker 1: high school. By the way, Ira was a senior, Michael
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  Speaker 1: was a freshman. He says, we didn't know how to
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  Speaker 1: exercise political power, but we thought we'd have fun with it.
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  Speaker 1: And we did not like pay toilets.
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  Speaker 2: No, he sure didn't.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, and at first, this is a situation where you
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  Speaker 1: have four bright teenagers. You have four nerds and they're
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  Speaker 1: figuring out a hobby. They already are friends, They pile up,
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  Speaker 1: they hang out together, so why not create a little
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  Speaker 1: mission for fun. Ira and Steve. As we mentioned earlier,
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  Speaker 1: they left for college in September of nineteen sixty nine.
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  Speaker 1: For a while, they used Septia as a way for
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  Speaker 1: their crew. They're forcesome to stay in touch, and they
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  Speaker 1: went back and forth for around a year trying to
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  Speaker 1: figure out the next best steps. And they were paying
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  Speaker 1: a dime to poop the whole way. I can imagine
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  Speaker 1: they were like the rest of the US public. They
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  Speaker 1: hated pay toilets, but they didn't really understand how to
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  Speaker 1: fight back against them.
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  Speaker 2: So in June of nineteen seventy, Septya it sounds like
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  Speaker 2: a Transformers like gang of Villainous Autobots or dycepticoncers the
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  Speaker 2: I Joe, There You Go exactly. Sept Ya hell its
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  Speaker 2: first official meeting at the Dayton Public Library, and though
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  Speaker 2: it did start a little bit late, around fifteen minutes
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  Speaker 2: because library officials were worried that there wasn't an adult
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  Speaker 2: in the room, the meeting was attended by twenty nine members,
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  Speaker 2: mostly friends of the four founders, and the group cited
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  Speaker 2: a total membership roster of forty eight at the time.
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  Speaker 2: Why are all these young folks so concerned about this?
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  Speaker 2: It's such an interesting cause to get to get all
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  Speaker 2: worked up over. I guess I get it, though, I
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  Speaker 2: mean times were different, you know, they were maybe looking
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  Speaker 2: at it from a different through a different lens.
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  Speaker 1: Cool way to hang out.
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  Speaker 2: Also, sure, you gotta you know what it's good to say. Hey,
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  Speaker 2: it's a good reason to get together. Lifetime membership only
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  Speaker 2: cost a quarter, you know, and included a card signed
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  Speaker 2: by one of the founders as well as the group
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  Speaker 2: had an anthem, a newsletter and a logo and the anthem.
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  Speaker 2: What was the tune to the anthem? Then we've got
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  Speaker 2: the lyrics here, but I wish I knew what it
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  Speaker 2: was what the tune was. Usually anthems like this are
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  Speaker 2: done to like popular tunes.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's like a high school fight song. We can
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  Speaker 1: maybe do it with some music. I think the meter
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  Speaker 1: shows us will work until we know that toilets in
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  Speaker 1: America are free wherever we go. We'll flush them out,
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  Speaker 1: We'll wipe them out. We pledge, Oh Sceptia, something like.
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  Speaker 2: That, Receptia, Oh Captain my captain. The quarterly newsletter, which
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  Speaker 2: is entitled The Free Toilet Paper, is this like a
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  Speaker 2: gut it? I do get it? This particular newsletter reported
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  Speaker 2: on the group's various causes and activities, as well as
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  Speaker 2: the odd anecdote about encountering pay toilets in the wild.
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  Speaker 2: In the very first issue, Michael laid out what could
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  Speaker 2: be taken as the group's kind of, you know, modus operandi,
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  Speaker 2: a bit of a manifesto. We feel that pay toilets
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  Speaker 2: are unjust infringements on our basic human rights. Elimination is
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  Speaker 2: an important body function that must take place dime or
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  Speaker 2: no dime. This sounds like something that Larry David would
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  Speaker 2: get up, Absolutely does it not?
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  Speaker 1: Do you do the rest of the quote and the
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  Speaker 1: Larry David voice.
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  Speaker 3: The Social Action Committee hopes to be able to present
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  Speaker 3: STEPTIA members with effective weapons of guerrilla warfare in the
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  Speaker 3: form of bumper stickers, the brainless donkeys of the field.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, we should not stroke beards.
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  Speaker 1: So an umbrella is a man's own. Us are very
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  Speaker 1: good and umbrella, it's your old umbrella. They also except
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  Speaker 1: you had a logo that they pulled from the way
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  Speaker 1: more serious New Left movement. It's a fist coming out
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  Speaker 1: of the toilet, grasping chains and rising, you know from
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  Speaker 1: that commode. Well, we've got we've got a picture here.
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  Speaker 1: It looks so weird, dude, It's really weird.
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  Speaker 2: Man.
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  Speaker 1: Isn't a chain because it has clearly a lock, but
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  Speaker 1: it kind of looks like a duty It looks.
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  Speaker 2: Like a duty chain. Yeah, no, duty bounds is what
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  Speaker 2: they were to eliminate this, this this malicious pay toilet
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  Speaker 2: scourge that had ravished the United States ravage rather. I
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  Speaker 2: don't know, man, all of this stuff taken as a whole,
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  Speaker 2: really feels like a gag movement. But it feels a
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  Speaker 2: little bit of a troll. I don't know. Maybe I'm wrong.
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  Speaker 1: No, I think we're on the same page here, man,
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  Speaker 1: because it feels like, uh, or we're sitting on the
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  Speaker 1: same stall here. Because it feels like this was Discordianism, right,
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  Speaker 1: This was artful, artful agents of chaos by.
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  Speaker 2: Sort of like the birds aren't real movement.
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  Speaker 1: Somewhat similar, for sure. In early nineteen seventy one, our
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  Speaker 1: friends at Septia announced that they were funded to a
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  Speaker 1: grand total of twenty five dollars and twenty cents if
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  Speaker 1: we could do an inflation calculator.
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  Speaker 2: And a dude, that's a boop.
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  Speaker 1: That's a boo, that's a boop. That is about two
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  Speaker 1: hundred and twelve dollars and nineteen cents in twenty twenty six.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, even with those inflated numbers, that doesn't quite seem
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  Speaker 2: like a lot budgets to operate an entire organization. The
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  Speaker 2: brothers were able to save a bit more money using
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  Speaker 2: their dad's printing machines. So now, obviously you need a
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  Speaker 2: lot of money to push these kind of pamphlets and
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  Speaker 2: political agendas actually through Congress, and twenty five bucks, even
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  Speaker 2: again with those inflated numbers, wasn't going to do it.
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  Speaker 2: But these kids did have something on their side, and
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  Speaker 2: that was perfect timing because people were already pretty irritated
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  Speaker 2: about this stuff and their beliefs aligned with some pretty
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  Speaker 2: powerful folks.
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  Speaker 1: Absolutely, Yet they were not the only people with their
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  Speaker 1: finger on the pulse of the zeitgeist here. A lot
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  Speaker 1: of people hated pay toilets, and a lot of those
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  Speaker 1: haters included legislators, specifically folks like a California assembly woman
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  Speaker 1: named March fong Uh who proposed a bill that would
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  Speaker 1: ban toilets in public places throughout the state if you
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  Speaker 1: had to pay for them. Now, assembly Woman Fong was
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  Speaker 1: a fan of dramatic performances. I think we'll all love
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  Speaker 1: this one time. This is a true story. She draped
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  Speaker 1: a toilet in chains in front of the California State
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  Speaker 1: Capitol and called the press over and absolutely knocked the
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  Speaker 1: crap out of it into bits, with the crap out
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  Speaker 1: of it into bits with a hammer. We can't avoid
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  Speaker 1: these puns, folks.
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  Speaker 2: They they happened organically. So do you think that what
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  Speaker 2: is this a chicken or the egg thing? Did the
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  Speaker 2: sepsio logo align with that or was it just parallel
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  Speaker 2: thinking with the chains and the toilet?
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  Speaker 1: You know, I still wonder. No, I think I want
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  Speaker 1: to say parallel thinking. Yeah. Unfortunately, assembly Woman Pong's bill
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  Speaker 1: did fail, But there were other bills that were going
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  Speaker 1: around fighting the poop power of the pay toilet industry.
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  Speaker 1: Somebody in Oregon, a state senator named Edward Fatally, attempted
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  Speaker 1: to pass legislation banning pay toilets.
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  Speaker 2: Didn't work.
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  Speaker 1: Another similar piece of legislation went in Illinois that wouldn't
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  Speaker 1: flush either. This became a culture war Septia to your
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  Speaker 1: earlier quote from Michael Gessel. They always claimed free bathrooms
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  Speaker 1: are a basic human right, and opponents struck back and said,
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  Speaker 1: it's our right, as the people who own the bathrooms,
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  Speaker 1: to do whatever the heck we want with our toilets,
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  Speaker 1: and they got it's so weird, like if you've ever
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  Speaker 1: seen if you've ever seen the old clips of when
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  Speaker 1: seat belt legislation came into full effect and people were like, ah,
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  Speaker 1: it's an American to tell me how to drive my car.
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  Speaker 1: The gas station owners, the business owners are fighting tooth,
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  Speaker 1: nail and claw and tentacle against the idea of free restrooms.
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  Speaker 2: And speaking to a Maryland state legislative committee in nineteen
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  Speaker 2: seventy one, particular gas station owner commented, lustie very very
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  Speaker 2: passionate stuff. If a man ain't got a dime in
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  Speaker 2: his pocket, he shouldn't be using my restrooms.
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  Speaker 4: Now.
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  Speaker 2: That is that is about out of touch A way
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  Speaker 2: to phrase that as could possibly be done. Yeah, because
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  Speaker 2: he's clear if you don't have any money, you don't
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  Speaker 2: deserve to use the facilities.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah. It he's clearly saying I want more dimes in
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  Speaker 1: my pocket. He concluded in that committee statement, you're talking about.
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  Speaker 1: In the nineteen seventy he concluded that getting rid of
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  Speaker 1: pay toilets would be quote, the biggest mistake ever in
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  Speaker 1: Maryland end quote. It kind of ignores a lot of
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  Speaker 1: stuff that happened in Maryland over the previous decades. Business
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  Speaker 1: owners in large cities agreed, and a lot of them,
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  Speaker 1: from Chicago to Boston would say that charging people to
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  Speaker 1: use those toilets was a constitutional.
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  Speaker 2: Right, which again I think we can see both sides.
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  Speaker 2: You know it is. We do still in some respects
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  Speaker 2: abide by this notion of business owners reserve the right
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  Speaker 2: to refuse anyone's service private property. It's private property. It
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  Speaker 2: seems like they should be able to do this. The
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  Speaker 2: question of whether they should, but that is a different
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  Speaker 2: argument as to whether the public will stand for it
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  Speaker 2: and what the optics of its are.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, and all these business owners, to be honest, are
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  Speaker 1: being misleading. Everybody knows that beneath this winging about democratic
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  Speaker 1: and constitutional ideals, the real motivation for the pay to
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  Speaker 1: poop crowd is economic. It is financial. A bunch of
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  Speaker 1: newspapers around the time of this script fuffle, they looked
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  Speaker 1: at the numbers and they said, these pay to poop.
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  Speaker 1: Toilet stalls are raking in about thirty million dollars annually. Again,
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  Speaker 1: that's the early seventies. That equates to more than two
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  Speaker 1: hundred and forty eight million dollars in twenty twenty six.
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  Speaker 2: Fascinating exads.
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  Speaker 1: It's a it's a it's big poop business. And like
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  Speaker 1: you mentioned that company, nico Lock, Right, nico Lock gets
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  Speaker 1: a huge slice of that thirty million dollar pie. And
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  Speaker 1: they're getting worried. And they have the money, right, they
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  Speaker 1: have the power and the lobbying juice in the halls
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  Speaker 1: of Congress. So they go on the offensive. They get
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  Speaker 1: interviews with the Wall Street Journal and so on. They
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  Speaker 1: team up with other manufacturers and they issue a lot
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  Speaker 1: of statements that aged like milk left out in the sun.
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  Speaker 1: They say, look, we have to have pay toilets because
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  Speaker 1: those quote discourage drug addicts, homosexuals, muggers, and just playing
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  Speaker 1: hippies from haunting public restrooms. Oh my gosh, oh, perish
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  Speaker 1: the thought.
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  Speaker 2: So this company that made these locks also printed and
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  Speaker 2: distributed a leaflet they were trying to influence public opinion,
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  Speaker 2: a leaflet titled why pay toilets? Why pay toilets? Septcha
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  Speaker 2: published a counter pamphlet titled why Not Pay Toilets, which
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  Speaker 2: feature the organization's first widespread usage of the feminist argument,
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  Speaker 2: which we mentioned earlier and makes a lot of sense.
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  Speaker 2: You know, it's it's a it's a very common sense
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  Speaker 2: approach to this that again, like fifty percent population can
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  Speaker 2: relate to. Yet SEPTA's founders largely resisted the urge to
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  Speaker 2: stray entirely from their single issue position, you know, as
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  Speaker 2: an organization.
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  Speaker 1: This is where we go to folks like Stephen Karganovic,
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  Speaker 1: who was president of the Cargo Chapter of Septia, because
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  Speaker 1: again Septia was massively expanding. This guy, Steve, he writes
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  Speaker 1: into the Chicago Tribune, a paper of wonderful note, and
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  Speaker 1: he says, quote, as young people become increasingly disenchanted with
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  Speaker 1: nihilism and grandiose but ineffectual or destructive schemes, they should
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  Speaker 1: be encouraged to deal with each problem separately and modestly
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  Speaker 1: as the only sure way to serve the people and
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  Speaker 1: improve our life, our way of life. So Steve here
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  Speaker 1: is saying, look, we're Septia. We know we're becoming more
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  Speaker 1: politically important. We're not branching out into other movements. We
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  Speaker 1: just it's so Larry David dude. They just say, we
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  Speaker 1: don't think you should have to pay the poop. And
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  Speaker 1: people are getting behind this in an increasingly divisive United States.
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  Speaker 1: If we fast forward, it's nineteen seventy three, January eleventh,
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  Speaker 1: a ton of reporters from various outlets convene at the
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  Speaker 1: Chicago Sheraton Hotel, and we're talking folks like UPI, Reuters,
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  Speaker 1: the Associated Press, the four founding members of Septia, who
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  Speaker 1: are all still by the way college students at this point.
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  Speaker 1: They sit together on a small stage and they kind
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  Speaker 1: of pass the mic like a posse hip hop track,
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  Speaker 1: and they just sort of they trade off statements to
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  Speaker 1: make a huge impression, huge splash.
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  Speaker 2: Keep it a huge splash, indeed, and it was a
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  Speaker 2: bit of a heated exchange. Michael Gessel told reporters pay
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  Speaker 2: toilets loom in the dusty corridors of our nation's bus
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  Speaker 2: and train stations. They await this is Larry.
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  Speaker 4: The unwary traveler. In the shiny restrooms of our airports.
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  Speaker 4: They find victims in shopping malls, restaurants, hotels, potman stores,
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  Speaker 4: and launder still.
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  Speaker 2: Feels like a troll man. This is so funny.
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  Speaker 4: Whatever man goes, the specter of the pay toilets is
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  Speaker 4: sure to appear.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, and the audience is wrapped with attention and awe.
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  Speaker 1: Our founders of Septia also note some open secrets. Again,
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  Speaker 1: I keep going back to anarchism and discordianism. They say, look,
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  Speaker 1: Nicolaus spending a lot of money, but it's pretty easy
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  Speaker 1: to bypass these stall locking mechanisms. Is where Precker takes
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  Speaker 1: a floor and explains the four common methods of bypassing
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  Speaker 1: these locks. One is the American crawl. That's where you
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  Speaker 1: crawl under the stall door because you really got a poop.
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  Speaker 1: You get the doorman. That's where you are sacrificing for
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  Speaker 1: the public good. You put your diamond the lock, and
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  Speaker 1: then you just hold the door open as long as
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  Speaker 1: you can for other people to poop.
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  Speaker 2: And of course we've got the sticket, which involves placing
• 21:03
  Speaker 2: a piece of invisible tape over the locking mechanism so
• 21:06
  Speaker 2: it can't engage ben. I can't help but be reminded
• 21:08
  Speaker 2: of the old trick that I don't know if anybody
• 21:11
  Speaker 2: ever actually did this, but drilling a hole in a
• 21:12
  Speaker 2: dime and tying a string around us to get a
• 21:15
  Speaker 2: free call out of an old pay phone.
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah yeah, used to work, used to work.
• 21:20
  Speaker 2: Yep. And then we've got, of course, finally the stuff
• 21:23
  Speaker 2: we know a lot about that, don't we ben where
• 21:25
  Speaker 2: some unused toilet paper is lodged into the locking mechanism.
• 21:28
  Speaker 2: So at this point we've almost got like a Luddite
• 21:31
  Speaker 2: level act of you know, sabotage going on.
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, you get in situations right. This is a
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: brilliant piece of pr on Septia side, because they're saying,
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: not only is what's happening wrong and a symptom of
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: big business picking on the little poop, but this also
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: is a paper tiger. The emperor of stole locks really
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: has no clothing because it's so easy to break the
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: locker bypass it. Nico Lock, the main company here, hates this,
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: but there is an immediate impact. A month after that
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: press conference, then Mayor of Chicago, Richard J. Daly says
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: pay toilets are going away. All the toilets at the
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: city's airports are going to be free. He did say
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: I did it for women's lib recalling feminism movements and
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: women's liberation, and then later that March, Chicago went further.
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: They banned pay toilets all together. This was the first
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: major US city to do this. Nico Lock took them
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: to court. Nico Lock lost the case, maybe because the
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: judge had to poop.
• 22:46
  Speaker 2: And the rest is history. Over the next few years, California, Alaska, Florida, Iowa,
• 22:50
  Speaker 2: and Nevada, New York and New Jersey and acted similar laws.
• 22:53
  Speaker 2: SEPTIA membership ballooned in lockstep with these changes, and still
• 22:58
  Speaker 2: just a quarter for life time membership or two and
• 23:01
  Speaker 2: a half poops at a paid toilet. We did the math.
• 23:05
  Speaker 2: We did the math. We did the cocktail math. By
• 23:08
  Speaker 2: nineteen seventy six, they had an estimated eighteen hundred members
• 23:11
  Speaker 2: across units. It's still, you know, not a legion, but
• 23:16
  Speaker 2: you know, a modest membership.
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: I'm just loving this. Larry David comparison. We're huge, huge
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: fans of Larry and this feels like he would This
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: feels like something he would be spearheading.
• 23:32
  Speaker 2: He'd run point common sense, Yes, he would say so.
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: Septia eventually dissolves. This leads to why you poop for
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: free in a lot of the United States. We have
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: to remember these are high school kids, very bright, very
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: prescian kids, who created this as a way to hang out,
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: and they went to college. They live their normal lives.
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: They graduated, they found careers, by the way, primarily outside
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: of the toilet and plumbing industry. Eventually they all agreed
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: it was time to bid the organization a do. They
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: could not linger in the stole of activism forever. Michael,
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: the younger of the Guestler brothers, was the longest serving
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: president of SEPTIA, and he noted, I'm not sure how
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: we want to intone this quote, but he noted, it
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: became very time consuming because it evolved into a very
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: serious advocacy effort, and we didn't have the time to
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: keep it up. The burden of continuing the work grew,
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: and so it came to.
• 24:43
  Speaker 2: Ma chuing the work. Man. I'm sorry. It's also frivolous, right,
• 24:48
  Speaker 2: it's so, it's.
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: I love it. I love the daring do I love the.
• 24:52
  Speaker 2: Bravado and the daring. Indeed, Oh no, no, okay, So
• 25:00
  Speaker 2: what we're saying, nothing to be done, nothing to be done,
• 25:02
  Speaker 2: nothing to be done.
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: So in June of nineteen seventy six, Septia issues a
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: news release where they claim victory and they announced that
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: they're closing down Septia. Noel, can you give us the
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: quote here?
• 25:19
  Speaker 2: Sure well, Ben, I sure will. It reads in part,
• 25:24
  Speaker 2: there are so many anti paid toilet bills being introduced
• 25:28
  Speaker 2: around the country that we can no longer keep track
• 25:30
  Speaker 2: of all of them. Septia wasn't making a bid for power.
• 25:34
  Speaker 2: Its end was its own elimination. Remember the term elimination
• 25:40
  Speaker 2: that means pooping and ping.
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: Yeah, weird finger of the bulls here, folks. This is
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: this is why the United States of America has so
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: many free toilets today. And thank goodness, because can you
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: imagine the smell? It's already no. My pal Nol spends
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: a lot lot of time in New York. I go
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: there pretty frequently. Crude and summer has a specific smell.
• 26:06
  Speaker 2: It does been and I will argue this. We've already
• 26:08
  Speaker 2: mentioned that there are a lot of pay toilets and
• 26:11
  Speaker 2: parts of Asia, in countries and cities that are known
• 26:16
  Speaker 2: for being very very clean. In parts of Europe, et cetera.
• 26:20
  Speaker 2: And in New York, for example, it's real hard to
• 26:23
  Speaker 2: find a public restroom, exceedingly hard so I would argue,
• 26:28
  Speaker 2: at least for me, I would much rather I would
• 26:31
  Speaker 2: gladly spend a dime for a clean public restroom. And
• 26:35
  Speaker 2: I will say this, I am starting to notice more
• 26:38
  Speaker 2: of these kind of restroom pods, not porta potties, but
• 26:42
  Speaker 2: like popping up. I think I'm starting to I've seen
• 26:44
  Speaker 2: a few in Atlanta even, yes, that are kind of
• 26:46
  Speaker 2: they look like almost like little I don't know, kind
• 26:49
  Speaker 2: of like those breastfeeding stations and airports, you know, and
• 26:53
  Speaker 2: I love I like that. I don't think they're pay
• 26:55
  Speaker 2: but there is something to be said. I think they
• 26:56
  Speaker 2: might have some self cleaning mechanisms. I know certainly there
• 26:59
  Speaker 2: are public restrooms in cities in Europe and in Asia
• 27:03
  Speaker 2: again that have some self cleaning methodology behind them. But
• 27:07
  Speaker 2: I'd gladly pay a dime to use the restroom rather
• 27:11
  Speaker 2: than have to buy an obligatory coffee or something that
• 27:13
  Speaker 2: I didn't want.
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I'd pay a dollar, especially if you could tap
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: your card right and you didn't need exact change, because
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: that's part of the reason people were so head up
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: and up in arms. We do to your point, in
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: noal have to recognize that pay toilets are still very
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: much a gray area in the United States, buy something
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: right before you use the facilities, but they're also very
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: much the norm and a lot of other countries. I
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: remember Max and I were talking about this off air
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: back before the podcasting stuff. When I had to live
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: in Central America. I learned that some restrooms are technically free.
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: But get this, dude, there's no toilet paper.
• 28:00
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: Sticks. There are groups of people outside, usually entrepreneurs, sometimes
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: run by organized crime. They sell you toilet paper by
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: the square.
• 28:11
  Speaker 2: Wow, what did that run you?
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: Well, I did have. I'm not going to go into detail,
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: but the first time I found it out the hard way.
• 28:20
  Speaker 2: One would imagine that in these circumstances you would learn
• 28:23
  Speaker 2: to travel with your own at the very least, maybe
• 28:26
  Speaker 2: some of those little you know, tissues, travel tissue mackets.
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: Yeah. We also found a uh. We also found several
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: comprehensive lists of the cost of pay toilets in Europe,
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: where we we spend a fair amount of time. Uh.
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: It's like it's one euro at some stations in Germany.
• 28:49
  Speaker 2: It's an affair. It's like a whole operation that that
• 28:52
  Speaker 2: maintains these these these toilets. And again, uh, they are
• 28:55
  Speaker 2: quite clean and and you can pretty much for the
• 28:58
  Speaker 2: most part, guarantee a continent of the service. Let's just
• 29:01
  Speaker 2: call it.
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: There we go. I like that sort of phrase, and
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: I bet it's even better at a La Mountain right
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: in German. So we know that, we know that, we
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: know that we might sound like fancy boys. But I
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: think if we treat the public restroom as a human right,
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: as a public good for dignity and overall sanitation, we
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: also do have to recognize that, at least in some
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: other countries, pay toilets do make sense, right, They make
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: euros and sense or centavos or what have you. Like it.
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: They are cleaner, like you were saying.
• 29:43
  Speaker 2: And it's not that different from like in Europe as well.
• 29:47
  Speaker 2: You have to leave a deposit for glass bottles, for example,
• 29:50
  Speaker 2: and then if you return the glass bottles, you get
• 29:53
  Speaker 2: the deposit back. So there are little systems like that
• 29:56
  Speaker 2: in place that just are kind of common sense that
• 29:58
  Speaker 2: do lead to less littering and cleaner facilities. So I'm
• 30:02
  Speaker 2: just saying.
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: And for a long time, by the way, a public
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: urination was legal in Finland just the off chance you
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: have to be Yeah, you might be on the way
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: to Finland tonight, folks, please you remember that is no
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: longer the case.
• 30:18
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and just again back to Germany's system, that Santa
• 30:21
  Speaker 2: Fair system. You can find those at rest stops along
• 30:25
  Speaker 2: the Autobahn, the famous interstate highway system where people drive
• 30:29
  Speaker 2: exceedingly fast. These Santa Fair facilities are like I was
• 30:33
  Speaker 2: mentioning earlier, self cleaning cubicles. They cost about lists to
• 30:37
  Speaker 2: call it, seventy cents. You get a voucher. It's valid
• 30:40
  Speaker 2: at participating shops in restaurants, so there's actually sort of
• 30:43
  Speaker 2: a little bit of a trade off going there, whether
• 30:46
  Speaker 2: you like it or not. Santa Fair facilities are consistently cleaned,
• 30:49
  Speaker 2: well maintained. In Berlin, for example, at the haupt Banhoff,
• 30:53
  Speaker 2: which is the health bound hov is just referred to
• 30:55
  Speaker 2: the large main transit station. You're gonna also see examples
• 30:59
  Speaker 2: of these fair systems.
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: Absolutely, and with this, we hope you we hope you've
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: had a great time listening to this two part series
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: wherever you might be, guys, I want to share one
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: thing as we're dropping off here. This is the picture
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: of assembly woman from California knocking out a toilet bound
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: by chains at a protest and she looks so happy.
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: And that's our show for this week. Thank you so
• 31:34
  Speaker 1: much for tuning in. Please stay tuned for our upcoming
• 31:38
  Speaker 1: classic episodes. Big big thanks to our super producer mister
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: Max Williams, as well as Jonathan Strickland aka the quister,
• 31:48
  Speaker 1: who one time tried to charge me five dollars to
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: pee in his house. I went outside.
• 31:53
  Speaker 2: Well, at least you could be sure that his facilities
• 31:56
  Speaker 2: would always be an impeccable working order and states of pending,
• 32:00
  Speaker 2: because we know that Jonathan parlays that money into the
• 32:03
  Speaker 2: maintenance of his restroom facilities.
• 32:05
  Speaker 1: Big big thanks always, of course to our own underwater
• 32:10
  Speaker 1: explosion expert, doctor Rachel Big Spinach Lance.
• 32:13
  Speaker 2: And that don't just mean pooping in the pool, That
• 32:15
  Speaker 2: doesn't just.
• 32:16
  Speaker 1: Be pooping in the pool. Big Friday Energy here, Big
• 32:20
  Speaker 1: thanks too, of course, aj Bahamas, Jacobs, who else know
• 32:23
  Speaker 1: who else? Who else is?
• 32:25
  Speaker 2: Oh geez, you know the usual Christ Frasiotis and Eaves
• 32:28
  Speaker 2: Jeff Coates here in spirit.
• 32:30
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and big thanks to the rude dudes of Ridiculous Crime.
• 32:34
  Speaker 1: If you like us, you'll love them. We can't thank
• 32:40
  Speaker 1: everybody who works on public sanitation enough. I feel like
• 32:44
  Speaker 1: it's one of the most underappreciated roles in society, literally
• 32:50
  Speaker 1: saving lives. Let me get off the soapbox, let me
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: get out of the stall.
• 32:53
  Speaker 2: Here. What a wild ride, dude, Oh the wildest. I
• 32:57
  Speaker 2: love it, love it. Nothing better than a two parter
• 32:59
  Speaker 2: on poop. We'll see you next time, folks. For more
• 33:09
  Speaker 2: podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or
• 33:12
  Speaker 2: wherever you listen to your favorite shows.