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

[whatinthenameofcrapisthis]

DD(17) has a part time job at Greggs around her college hours. She told me today that they (the staff) regularly find used needles in the toilets from people injecting drugs, and that it's well known that particular people spend a long time in the toilets doing that. The same people also often shoplift sandwiches and drinks. I asked DD what the policy is for dealing with this, ie do they contact the police, and she said "we don't ring the police, we just report the drug use via a specified number", ie a drug hotline for Greggs itself (?), and that some staff have protective equipment to pick up needles. I was so baffled by this.

Surely used needles being left in toilets is a matter for the police? Greggs staff are not paid enough to have to deal with this surely? I told my daughter she should not be doing this.
Granted it's not the best area where the store is that she works at, lots of poverty and crime etc, but still... This has really shocked me!

AIBU to expect my teen daughter who is paid minimum wage in Greggs not to have to handle used needles?!

Criminalising drug use has caused a lot of misery the world over.
it’s a public health issue, not a police matter.
safe injection sites would stop this pretty quickly but… nimby

oh you don’t live on the rough side, do you

Sadly the police won't do anything. They won't even respond.

This sort of thing is incredibly common OP and happened in many of the places I worked and waitressed in as a student. Staff paid an absolute pittance were expected to clean it up, although some of the better places had sharps bins and offered staff Hepatitis B injections as a precaution.

Where is it socially acceptable for people to inject in public toilets????

the ignorance! That’s why most countries don’t progress with resolving addiction issues.

@EmilyTjP and the poster whose name I've forgotten. All of the Greg's near me are 'eat in' & thus have toilets, the only one that doesn't is in a shopping mall, so don't have to have/can't have their own.

I live in a (very expensive and 'trendy' city where this is quite common. There are lots of addicts on the streets and in public toilets and parks. Most of the cafe toilets in town have code locks on them and you have to make a purchase to use them.

I agree, it shouldn’t be. But unfortunately it has, as evidenced by it actually happening, Greggs having to pay for people with PPE to come in and deal with it , and the police doing nothing, probably because they are understaffed and underfunded as well.

What ignorance are you talking about?

Then you get a confrontation with a druggie who demands the code.

Sounds like Brighton,

Welcome to the world of retail. 16 year old McDonalds workers are also dealing with this. It’s not a new thing either. 2 years ago while working in a bar I was dealing with needles and vomit and human shit

I work in a supermarket & this does happen. We have to check the toilets regularly. There's a kit for handling sharps & a sharps bin. If found the toilet would be locked & a manager or team leader would deal with it.
Individual incidents aren't reported to the police. There's nothing they could do any way but overall patterns are fed back to the safer neighbourhood team.

There's far worse things I've had to deal with in the toilets to be honest.

Before everyone slags off the police further saying they ‘don’t give a shit’ - it’s not a police matter because the law was changed a few years ago that said any theft of goods below £200 was not a prosecutable offence. That’s why criminal gangs are basically helping themselves on a daily basis all over the uk. Because they can. With impunity.

Drugs are another matter and yes I agree a young woman should not have to clear needles or deal with drug addicts without precaution. What is the Greggs HR health and safety risk assessment for this?

You have lived a sheltered life OP, when I lived in a city centre flat, the local KFC had blue lighting so drug users couldn’t see their veins and use the facilities to inject drugs..

I walked around the same city last week for 20 minutes as I was early for a meeting, and I probably counted at least 11 people who where clearly class a drug users and around 4 people smoking weed openly as if it was a cigarette.

The police have zero resources to respond to people openly drug using in the streets.

In fact, I was burgled about 6 years ago and the only police interaction I had was when they came round to take my statement. About £60k worth of property was stolen, cars, laptops, iPads, jewellery etc.

Surprised by the blue light thing. The best veins are the ones you can feel, not the ones you can see. (Said with HCP head on, incase anyone is wondering).

Police won't do anything.

My workmate had somebody try and climb in her open bedroom window via ladder (lights were off as she was just about to have a nap, so they thought she was out).

The bloke ran off leaving the ladder but the police wouldn't take fingerprints even though they were fairly sure who it was from her description. Apparently, they won't take prints unless blood has been spilled.

The bloke then came back and took his ladder later that same night.

I worked in a Burger King and it was literally like this bar the shoplifting.. we eventually got a coded door. But I honestly didn't realise how many people were on drugs until I worked there! The sharps box was full many times.

I haven’t seen it in many places since to be fair so it probably doesn’t work, but I imagine drug users who regularly inject don’t have the best vein structure either, so won’t be able to feel a nice plump vein.

Dont quite a lot of drug users lose toes as they have to resort to injecting in between them due to how badly damaged their veins are?

So you've said in one breathe that Gregg's shouldn't be making her do this because she's on minimum wage?? Then in the next told us it's not actually a part of her role, so why are you so upset and what would you like the company to do? You sound angry at them, it's not their fault shitty people abuse their premises and steal from them.

The police don't care,Greggs are doing exactly what they're supposed to do, it'll have been thoroughly risk assessed, they provide specially trained staff and the correct PPE. Many people on minimum wage face a level of risk in their jobs, that's why you have protective gear, training and processes. Cleaners handle all sorts of nasty chemicals so you should probably calm down.

There’s nothing new about the situation ,‘it’s just a shame the government haven’t done anything to tackle this.
I grew up in a small North Yorkshire town- super historic , lots of tourists. Worked in the local national chain pub, I found (aged 18) someone overdosed on H in the toilets…. Our local CO-OP had blue lights in to prevent people from shooting up in there. This was 18 years ago. It’s rife everywhere, maybe Greggs could get ahead of the mark and provide a drugs bin in the toilet, if it’s an issue this addresses it.

You’re right that your daughter isn’t getting paid enough to deal with used needles, no retail assistant should have to do that. Greggs should absolutely be doing more to stop the customer loos from being used for this purpose like a code on the door or something. Lots of places just don’t allow customers to use the loos at all. I don’t blame them.

Where I work, we don’t bother reporting the shoplifting (happens everyday, often multiple times a day) to the police unless we’ve been threatened or assaulted. Which happens a lot. The police rarely bother to come out. Even when one of the managers got put in a chokehold over a stolen bottle of wine they eventually came to collect cctv footage and a statement 2 weeks later.

Off the point but this thread is totally putting me off using public toilets!

I'm shocked that you are shocked tbh. I thought it was common knowledge that all of our public services have been so heavily eroded that none of them function as they should any more. The police are no different.

That's what 14 years of Tory government does, I suppose.

That’s not evidence, all that shows is someone entering a toilet…who’s to say the needle wasn’t already there? Would the toilet be checked before and after every person uses it? You can see where this is going can’t you….its a shit situation, and if you’ve never had cause to be involved in the (pardon the pun) sharp end of drug use, you’re not unreasonable to be shocked. I wouldn’t want my 17 yr old working there

When my dh worked at Sainsbury’s he got called down from upstairs as someone had actually shit on the floor for no reason.

Toilets were open and free and clean. But no they just shat in the middle of the aisle and walked around doing their shopping.
It gets worse...
They was barred and actually came back in a week later to ask to be unbarred 😩. No shame at all.

Came here to say this.

It’s undoubtedly shit minimum wage workers have to deal with this kind of behaviour, but it is part of a much, much larger issue. The police aren’t going to bang up every single drug user up and down the country, and putting a code on local toilets just means your DD is faced with having to say ‘no’ and finding herself in an altercation. The only solution is to provide an alternative safe space such as injection sites.