Public restrooms in Chinatown close after trial period

Now that a 90-day trial period is over.. the public restrooms in Chinatown are now closed.

The Chinatown Business and Community Association along with the city’s office of economic development raised the $10,000 dollars to operate the trial.

The CBCA says the program was a success.. but is now concerned Chinatown merchants and residents will have to deal with unsanitary conditions on the sidewalks.

The CBCA is hoping funding can be found to keep the restrooms open year-round.
—————-
Letter sent by Chinatown Business & Comunity Association:

Dear All – last night at 9:00 p.m. we took down the banners and signs at the River of Life Building and closed the 90 day weekend public toilets. We thank CBCA officers & members, River of Life Mission, City of Honolulu & lots of our supporters for making this a success!! To date we have close to 800 users. We had 330 hours or 30 full 11 hour days of service and 80% of the users are males.

We average 27 users each day. The bathrooms cost around $300 a day to keep open which is very expensive but considering the alternatives, this is a good community investment. Service began on November 19, 2011 and ended February 26, 2012 completing our 90 day trail at a cost of $10,000 half of which CBCA raised and the other half was funded through Office of Economic Development (OED) of the Mayor’s office.

There was only one behavior incident which security was able to handle with a homeless lady tearing down wet paint signs. We had no building problems, no drugs, no fights and no alcohol incidents during these months we operated the bathrooms. Now that the 90 day trail weekend public toilets are finished, we are worried without access to public toilets in Chinatown we will again have to deal with unsanitary conditions on Chinatown sidewalks with street people and others using door ways and sidewalks as their toilets.

Mahalos: We again thank all our generous donors and supporters and partners for making this important community project a resounding success and this project demonstrated the dire need of having permanent public toilets in Chinatown. We hope the City and our Tourist Promotion Board can step in and fund a full time 365 day public toilets very soon.