SAN FRANCISCO — If Los Angeles officials want a glimpse of what might result from their decision to install 150 pay toilets around town, including in its most downtrodden areas, they need only consult Robert Anderson.
Each day, the downtown parking attendant watches drug-addled street denizens with their shaking hands and dirty bedrolls congregate at the corner of 6th and Mission on San Francisco's skid row.
At the oval-shaped pay toilet, one of 25 installed by the same French company with which L.A. officials are negotiating, the parade of crack addicts and prostitutes subjects the facility to just about everything but what it was designed for.
"Nobody goes to the bathroom," Anderson said. "They've turned that toilet into a shooting gallery, a house of prostitution and a homeless crash pad. And that's during the daytime. The nights are worse."
While they admit there are problems, San Francisco officials are pleased with the success of their 6-year-old program to put the 25-cent, self-cleaning toilets in areas serving both the tourist population and the city's homeless residents.
The toilets function so well, especially in such tourist areas as Fisherman's Wharf, that they plan to install more, they say.
The manufacturer, the JCDecaux company, says the forest-green lavatories, now in 550 cities worldwide, get a bad rap. Company officials say drug and prostitution problems existed long before the toilets came on the scene.
San Francisco Supervisor Gavin Newsom says he would simply warn Los Angeles: Watch where you put them.
"If we did it all over again, we'd give some locations much more scrutiny," he said, "because those toilets have become an attractive nuisance in high-traffic areas."
City officials concede that the problems are largely in areas with high homeless populations. Many toilets have been vandalized for quarters. Vandals pry open the doors, allowing several people to sleep or share drugs inside.
While JCDecaux maintenance crews each day clean up the hypodermic needles and condom wrappers, the 6th and Mission toilet has drawn so many complaints that city officials plan to move it.
In another pay washroom, a man was found dead of a heroin overdose. At another, police videotaped a prostitute at work for eight straight hours. City officials say the electronically controlled doors of the lavatories are routinely broken by vagrants who force their way inside, despite a city program to distribute free tokens.
