To insist my 5 yr old ds uses toilets in Halfords, when they say 'NO' due to insurance reasons?

[DrNortherner]

In Halfords last night at 5.30pm. Dh was spending £400 on a new bike. Ds needs loo.

Spotty teenage staff say no, not insured blah blah blah.

I say OK, lets go outside. Ds says no I need a poo.

Staff say use pub next door. Ds getting more and more desperate. Poo is coming.

I say 'Let him use your toilet now or dh will not buy bike' (dh looks aghast)

I demand manager.

We get escorted to toilet, but only a one off.

What do you think?

I worked in a branch of a shop once - we always took customers to loos (I say toilets!). In another local branch a child chopped the tip off a finger with a toilet door. But we still had the - take the customer to the toilet - policy.

Of course all of this could be easily solved if shops just installed customer toilets
if they expect you to shop in there for any length of time they should provide facilities - not just for LO's but for those with medical conditions which means the call of nature can come on quite quickly!
I bet that Halford's had a drinks machine in it - if they supply the "in" they should also provide facilities for the "out"

The insurance factor is a bit of red herring really. It should be as safe for the staff as it is for members of the public (ie, no cables to trip over etc); and it's doubtful that a child would sustain an injury bad enough for a parent to sue a major company and win sustantial damages, and for the shop assistant and manager to be sacked as a result.

I suspect it's more to do with public toilets having to be cleaned and inspected on a more regular basis than those just for staff.

I sympathise with both sides of the arguement tbh.

I cant' say I blame you, Fio

Arcadia stores (as they were before they were bought by the Philip Green conglomerate) had a policy whereby small children and pregnant women were permitted to use the loo if we were asked about it. It was never publicised, but if a mum/dad or a pregnant lady asked in a panic we were always happy to escort them to the loo.

Agnes

The issue of 'past a security door' is a big issue, I think.
Thankfully big supermarkets now have customer toilets. Out with DS we have occasionally had to resort to a plastic bag and wipes debacle in the car.....

I completely agree with Fio. I am an ex-store manager and wouldn't have let a friend use the toilet. As for the public, no way! There would be no way to prove that you didn't know the customer should any stock go missing.

The insurance thing is true, but I'm sure it might differ from business to business. For what it's worth, I think that out of town retail parks should have public toilets, but evidently I'm one of those evil "jobsworths" as there is no way you woud use the toilet in my shop. It's not allowed by the company.

As Fio says, safety is an issue. I managed a computer games shop with hundreds of thousands of pounds worth of stock out the back, what if someone pulled a knife on me?

On the other side of the coin, I have had parents ask me for the toilet in the past, stating that little Tarquin was going to piss on the floor. Funnily enough, when I said no, they managed to hang around for at least another half an hour!

I don't know.... the shop isn't insured for members of the public to go in the back areas so I can't fault the staff member.

It's not only Halfords that don't have public loos - big shopping malls often don't have lots of public toilets. They tend to put them by the food courts which is fine until you get the other side of the mall and you get a little voice asking for them....

I'm not sure teaching a LO to poo on the floor if they can't reach a toilet is a good idea either though! Sometimes you just have to hang on.

So Northener the question is did your DH buy a bike???

2 recent experiences:

DD aged 3, desperate for a wee. Run into Milton Keynes Boots - which is a very large one BTW, and hurray, by their doors, there is a sign for a parent & child loo. Rush upstairs, look all around to no avail ..... yes, you've guessed it, advertised loo exists no longer. I would have stayed to berate a manager but DD was in a total state so just had to get her to an alternative loo instead.

2nd example is Early Learning Centre, in Hitchin, if anyone's interested. Now exactly who are you most likely to find in any ELC ..... yep, small children (with their parents), small, just trained children. Said branch always used to have a public loo. Now it doesn't .... why not I have no idea, the door is simply locked, the sign removed. Well, serve them right the other day DD weed all over their floor. I did apologise but whilst I didn't exactly get "told off" about it, I was handed a box of f*ing tissues with which to try and mop it up (which, thinking of them, I refused, as I knew it'd end up a heap of very unpleasant papier mache). Another mum came to my rescue by giving me a disposable changing mat to blot it instead.

I've lost count of the no. of times I've asked in chains if DD can use the loo (only when she really needs to I hasten to add) and the answer is nearly always no. Yet in small independent shops they are nearly always more helpful ..... and if it really is a H & S issue, you'd imagine a small independent retailer potentially stands to suffer a whole heap more if sued than a national chain. I suppose this loo thing might also be symptomatic of the lack of customer service you often find ... they can afford to turn away business, but smaller shops can't.

Either way it makes shopping with a toddler quite a risky affair.

Fio and Lazyline - you've both raised good points which hadn't really occured to me before.

I have worked with the public before (long time ago though) and I have a bit of an idea as to how horrible some people can be.

Oh LOL at peeing being a risky business

Well I will update ypu all when I et a reply from |Halfords.

Budababe yes dh did buy a bike he spent just over £400!

A member of our staff was trapped and assaulted in the staff toilets by a crack addict that someone had 'helpfully' let in to use the toilets.

I get your point ladies, but a mum with a 5 yr old boy in tow and a dh buying a bike do not pose a thraet.

I understand and sympathise with shop staff who are rightly worried about being assaulted if they help someone out ..... but this thread is about very young children who need the toilet. Unless an adult is pregnant, or carrying a card re: a medical condition, I don't think anyone would mind if they had to hang on for a public loo elsewhere .... but toddlers don't have that level of understanding, nor do they always have that level of control.

The incidents you both mention whilst shocking at the very least (and I hope the perpatrators in both instances were both arrested and subsequently charged) do involve adults, not children.

A lack of public conveniences in high streets (I only know of one actual public convenience run by the council in this immediate area of Essex where I reside) and I'm not just talking about those tinny portaloos is a real problem. This is also particularly noticeable after the Friday/Saturday night drunken rampages when some streets themselves are used as public conveniences.

We as a nation need more public toilets!!!.