Committee to End Pay Toilets in America

Founded| 1970; 56 years ago (1970)
Dissolved| 1976; 50 years ago (1976)
Coin-operated lock made by the Nik-O-Lok Company

The Committee to End Pay Toilets in America, or CEPTIA, was a 1970s grass-roots political organization which was one of the main forces behind the elimination of pay toilets in many American cities and states.

## Contents

* 1 History
* 2 Achievements
* 3 Criticism
* 4 References

## History

When a man's or woman's natural body functions are restricted because he or she doesn't have a piece of change, there is no true freedom.

Ira Gessel[1]

Founded in 1970 by nineteen-year-old Ira Gessel, the Committee's purpose was to "eliminate pay toilets in the U.S. through legislation and public pressure."[1][2][3]

Starting a national crusade to cast away coin-operated commodes, Gessel told newsmen, "You can have a fifty-dollar bill, but if you don't have a dime, that metal box is between you and relief."[4] Membership in the organization cost only $0.25, and members received the Committee's newsletter, the Free Toilet Paper. Headquartered in Dayton, Ohio, U.S., the group had as many as 1,500 members, in seven chapters.[1]

The group also sponsored the Thomas Crapper Memorial Award, which was given to "the person who has made an outstanding contribution to the cause of CEPTIA and free toilets."[1]

In 1973, Chicago became the first American city to act when the city council voted 37–8 in support of a ban on pay toilets in that city. According to at least one source, this was "a direct response, evidently," to CEPTIA.[4][5][6]

The group disbanded in 1976, with Gessel saying that CEPTIA "essentially achieved our victory".[7]

## Achievements

According to The Wall Street Journal, there were, in 1974, at least 50,000 pay toilets in America, mostly made by the Nik-O-Lok Company. Despite this flourishing commerce, CEPTIA was successful over the next few years in obtaining bans in New York, New Jersey, Minnesota, California, Florida, and Ohio.[8] Lobbying was so successful that by June 1976, twelve states had enacted bans and the group announced that it was disbanding, declaring its mission mostly achieved.[9]

## Criticism

While CEPTIA's campaign was successful in largely eliminating pay toilets in the United States, critics charge that the result was not a flourishing of free public toilets, but rather many fewer public toilets of any sort than in other countries that did not see a movement against pay toilets.[10][11] In a piece for Bloomberg CityLab, Sophie House called for a reconsideration of the pay toilet bans in the hope of making public toilets more widely available, like most places without pay toilet bans.[12]

## References

1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 Wallechinsky, David; Wallace, Irving (1975). The People's Almanac. Doubleday and Company, Inc. p. 1256. ISBN 0-385-04186-1. https://archive.org/details/peoplesalmanac00wall/page/1256.
2. ↑ Franckling, Kenneth (August 21, 1974). "Ban on pay toilets disputed". The Dispatch. https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=_XkcAAAAIBAJ&sjid=5lEEAAAAIBAJ&pg=7144,5347352.
3. ↑ Geringer, Dan (May 2, 1972). "A New Kind of Protest". The Palm Beach Post: pp. B1, B3. https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=XsUiAAAAIBAJ&sjid=xrcFAAAAIBAJ&pg=3313,393691.
4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 Felton, Bruce; Fowler, Mark (1994). The Best, Worst, & Most Unusual. Sterling Publishing Company, Inc.. p. 262. ISBN 978-0-88365-861-1. https://books.google.com/books?id=tpu2du-miikC&dq=committee+to+end+pay+toilets+in+america&pg=PA262.
5. ↑ Wiggins, Ron (August 2, 1973). "Comfort-For-Pay Being Flushed Out". Evening Independent. https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=if0LAAAAIBAJ&sjid=sVcDAAAAIBAJ&pg=1851,609678.
6. ↑ "Group Seeks to End Pay Toilets: And It Has Had Some Success Already". Sarasota Journal. July 25, 1973. https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=CPceAAAAIBAJ&sjid=KY0EAAAAIBAJ&pg=7338,2470934.
7. ↑ AP (August 15, 1976). "Anti-pay toilet organization disbands". The Lima News: pp. A2. https://www.newspapers.com/image/690798772/?match=1&terms=Committee to End Pay Toilets in America.
8. ↑ "Clinched fist rising from commodes ends". Journal-News (Hamilton, Ohio): p. B–6. August 19, 1976.
9. ↑ Dunphy, Robert J. (June 20, 1976). "Notes: Pay Toilets". The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/1976/06/20/archives/notes-highway-sculpture-notes-about-travel-notes-about-travel.html.
10. ↑ Gordon, Aaron (Sep 17, 2014). "Why Don't We Have Pay Toilets in America?". Pacific Standard. https://psmag.com/economics/dont-pay-toilets-america-bathroom-restroom-free-market-90683.
11. ↑ Yuko, Elizabeth (November 5, 2021). "Where Did All the Public Bathrooms Go?". https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2021-11-05/why-american-cities-lost-their-public-bathrooms.
12. ↑ House, Sophie (November 19, 2018). "Pay Toilets Are Illegal in Much of the U.S. They Shouldn't Be.". https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-11-19/why-the-u-s-should-give-pay-toilets-another-chance.

0.00

(0 votes)

Original source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Committee to End Pay Toilets in America. Read more

|

Retrieved from "https://handwiki.org/wiki/index.php?title=Organization:Committee_to_End_Pay_Toilets_in_America&oldid=4382258"