To be shocked by what DD told me about her workplace?

Sadly op it is like this in many retail cafe jobs. I have worked in a few and it was just part of my job. Sad and you are not paid enough for what you have to deal with. I used to work in the health service, and this stuff was a reason many people are keen on injecting rooms, to contain all the used syringes and active drug using to try reduce it from happening in random public toilets and on the street. It is awful having to clean it up without a doubt.

The police aren’t going to come everytime a syringe is left in the toilets somewhere, it won’t just be Greggs toilets that they use it will be multiple places around the town, do you really think the police have enough resources to go around and collect all the used needles every day 🙄. It’s not ideal but it sounds like Greggs has a policy in place and staff who have had training to deal with it. It
doesn’t sound like your daughter is being asked to deal with it yet so I wouldn’t worry about it.
if you’re not happy about it you need to find her another job that’s not in the town centre (or doesn’t have public toilets).

This is not an uncommon policy. My DD used to work at Aldi & they aren't allowed to challenge shoplifters & the police aren't interested

Friends here took over a pub/BnB just down the road from me, about as rural as you get in NI. Spent a fortune doing the rooms up. First weekend let - the occupants smeared shit literally everywhere as well as trashing the room - ripping the bedding up, pulling the curtain tracks off the walls soaking the carpet etc

They sold up because of the trauma of it

They'd be better off putting a sharps bin in the toilets so staff don't come into contact with the needles but I guess its not a good look. Really the drug users should be disposing of their own sharps in the container they are given with their needles but it's not the job of a Greggs employee to enforce that!

Hi OP have you or anyone you know ever worked in retail or restaurants? I'm afraid it is part and parcel of the stuff you have to deal with. The general public can be a absolutely gross at times and that goes from homeless drug users to supposedly responsible parents who allow their kids to do the most outrageous things and expect others to clear up their mess. The drug users accessing the toilets will be well known to the police and emergency services. They should put a lock on the door but then they'll pester people like your daughter to open it up. For balance, I worked at a gym that had sharps bins in the toilets. Although it sounds horrendous, it was better than us as employees having to empty bins with needles from steroid using members who then go on to take selfies of themselves with their tops off and upload to their 'influencer' Society is going to hell 🤣😵

But that would just be circumstantial. Spending a long time in the toilet isn’t going to get someone convicted.

Police definitely won’t come out cos a couple of sandwiches have been nicked.

A lot of Gregs don’t have toilets for this reason. They should have a daily door code like a lot of Starbucks and other places.

It absolutely sucks and I don’t condone or accept it in any way, but there’s so little that can be done about it.

Anyone who has/works for a DIY store with bathroom suite displays has had the joy of cleaning out someone’s poo from one of the displays’ toilets!

You got to have something wrong with you if you do a shit where you have no control over who walks past in the time it takes to empty your bowels.

We sold potties and a mother decided to let her DD use it and left the contents in potty on the shelf. Yet the toilet was ten steps away.

My colleague worked for Premier Inn in a hotel between two towns on a A road. She has found poo smeared everywhere- curtains, ceiling, bedding, kettle etc. Why would anyone stoop that low to do something like that?

My hairdresser’s DD works in a Greggs in the city centre (their largest one in the county) shopping centre. They wear body cams yet the one about 7 mins walk from me - the staff don’t.

i agree with the code on the door changing or lock it at all times but unlock it when someone purchases something or collects a TooGoodToGo bag.

As it’s a customer toilet, not a public toilet.

The supermarket where I work has a toilet- don’t have a cafe. Many years ago we kept it locked unless a customer requested it. As a woman used to drink vodka and wine in there, leaving the empties. It was a combination of booze nicked from other shops (had competitors name on label) stuff she nicked from the store. Unsure what happened to her - died, rehab, moved away (own choice or forced by courts), prison etc.

Subway in the area of shops where my work is keeps their toilet door locked.

My brother worked in a library and had the same problem. They also used to have sex workers using the toilet as a place of work and had to play the fun game of ‘is it water or urine on the seat?’

I worked as a waiter when I was younger in a very expensive two star restaurant, needs in the toilets were common place, toilets in nicer places are often more popular as you’re less likely to be caught etc.

They just need to go in a sharps bin, most places of work will have them.

Also as without more resources to tackle issues (not just policing but backlogs in courts, overcrowded prisons, underfunded health care which is where addiction would be treated) - businesses are left to take responsibility.

This means they need put enough staff on duty to monitor goods (so they don't get nicked) and or put security guards.

For Contextual, can you imagine Arkwright in Open All Hours letting someone get away with shoplifting?

We've moved to a consumerist culture where we want things on show and fast-yself service (or where business prioritise cheap prices or profits over having more staff) and then complain about the consequences!

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=HVFtyGAYaEw

Town centre locations with higher levels of crime and antisocial behaviour often have crime and disorder reduction partnerships schemes where shops and businesses input information to an app to help identify repeat shoplifters so that multiagency plans can be put in place to tackle their offending and the underlying needs that are driving it. This is probably the Greggs online reporting tool she is using.

This is needed because of the law and prosecution thresholds mentioned further up (e.g. it allows offences in multiple locations to be considered)/because the law makes it hard to prove some of the things OP is talking about (e.g. coming out of a toilet that had no needles in prove cannot prove drug use within the toilet so there) AND because supports like drug treatment legally have to be entered into voluntarily and helping to show a homeless person a pattern of their behaviour and its impact can help them to make those choices.

Staff handling needles should have been risk assessed and given training and personal protective equipment (or the employer could face a lawsuit if there was contamination and injury) - and ime this is valuable work and life experience for your DD on an issue which is becoming more and more serious and prevalent I'm very sorry to say.

Wishing DD the best of luck and hope she feels able to continue in the role.

Surely sharps containers would make everyone’s employment safer…

This greggs needs to offer the local police freebies or huge discounts. Then they'll never be out of there.

I don't know why you're so shocked and surprised.
You can't even use the loo in our local library any more and it had UV lights...
It's not just about jacking up its crack smoking etc.
Have you not noticed the blue lights and sloping cistern covers in pub bogs at all over the last 30 years?

Being an addict absolutely makes many people, who would not otherwise be arseholes, into arseholes.

I work in a library, this is a huge issue there. We do have sharps bins in the toilets, and many do use them, but not all.

Many people working in libraries, and it seems all the people working in the differernt government departments and charities, seem to take the view that this needs to be accommodated because addicts are marginalized. The area around the church I attend has a needle exchange nearby and so we find them all over - the workers will come out to do clean-ups periodically but of course it's never enough.

I feel sad for the addicts, I'm not unacquainted with what a burden it is, and I like many of the ones I see regularly as people - but increasingly I feel like non-addicts just living their lives, wanting to have their kids play in the neighbourhood (or even at the library, where we found a needle that had fallen out of someone's stuff in the children's area,) are given zero consideration by those making best practice recommendations, or creating services.