IN-PERSON: Livable Cities – New York

Abstract

Public toilet closures in the UK, brought about by austerity, have led to an increasing reliance upon private or commercial facilities, such as toilets in bars and cafes (Slater and Jones, 2018; White, 2019). Maintaining and monitoring these toilets has required additional labour for hospitality staff. In this paper, we share reflections from ‘Beers, Burgers and Bleach: Hygiene, Toilets and Hospitality in the Time of COVID-19’, a research project exploring the impact of additional cleaning and the monitoring of customer toilets during a public health crisis. It draws on solicited work diaries and in-depth interviews with 21 UK hospitality staff between 2020-2021. We explore the role of hospitality workers as ‘gatekeepers’ in maintaining toilet spaces and facilitating access to essential, everyday provisions. We suggest the closure of council-funded toilets has meant that the hospitality sector has become a social infrastructure to sustain a healthy city, whereby some workers see themselves as providing communities essential welfare facilities. However, research participants also described specific difficulties involved in monitoring toilet access: (1) discerning who was a ‘deserving’ and/or ‘legitimate’ toilet user; (2) feeling discomfort and/or risks of doing this work; and (3) concerns about inequity and who might be excluded. The toilet ‘gatekeeper’ role places individualised and difficult decisions upon the hospitality worker and shifts attention away from the urgent need for free, and unquestionable, access to public toilets to make our cities livable.