Tanger Shopping Center. Fort Myers, Florida. PG photo. This post is from 2012.
By Paul Goldfinger. 2012
Last year, we at Blogfinger were accused of “stirring the pot” by a township official who didn’t like our parking meter discussion. Well, at the risk of stirring another pot, here’s a story that won’t go away and is too important to ignore. Where will visitors to the Grove go when they have to go, especially in the off season when the Camp Meeting Association does not offer preferred seating near the Great Auditorium?
In this photo, you can see how one shopping community in Fort Myers, Florida handles an inconvenient truth: they simply offer restrooms in every store. But, in Ocean Grove, no solution has been offered by the Chamber of Commerce, which ought to be at the forefront of solving this problem. Surely the people who bring us live music on the corner, cars from another era, chocolate in the winter and street festivals in the fall could come up with a solution for crazed children running around Main Avenue yelling, “I gotta go potty, I gotta go potty.”
Do we want our guests to grab a cab to the next town when they gotta go? Will stirring the pot on this issue encourage the Chamber to take action?
At the very least, the facilities on the boardwalk and at the Youth Temple should be open on the weekends during the ‘off season.’
Would “a small weekly donation from each busines, and….Chamber Membership dues” fund the cost of operating the restrooms opposite the Great Auditorium that are closed this time of year? If not all week, possibly weekends.
One of the biggest faults for so many of the beach towns is the lack of public restrooms during winter and spring. It’s just a flat out insult. You can walk many miles on the boardwalk, which people do, and technically have nowhere to pee. You can get away with using Dunkin Donuts in Belmar, but I think in the past you couldn’t. There is also now a porta potty that says “Public Restroom” on it where they are doing work on the boardwalk in Belmar. What a lifesaver. Other towns get a big fail. And, of course, if you get caught peeing on the beach you get a summons, arrested, or whatever.
First, porta potties are…… kind of gross by nature. Second, this winter is unseasonably warm, but a porta potty when its 30 degrees out? Really? The tourists will LOVE that. They’ll freeze their behinds off, literally. Not a good idea, and a particulary bad one for the elderly or disabled
This is indeed a problem for visitors to the Grove. I have no idea what it would cost, but have often thought that porta pottie sp? behind the Fire House on the Central Avenue side between Olin and Main Ave could be a good solution. We could employ someone like LuAnn to keep them tidy each day with a small weekly donation from each business, and fund the cost of having them emptied through Chamber Membership dues. It doesn’t have to be an eyesore either, we could put up a trellis and some potted flowers, etc. to create a little garden effect to disguise the potties.
You are spot on concerning providing restrooms to visitors. The Camp Meeting association has wonderful facilities, when they are open. They were open all year long up until a couple of years ago. The CMA experienced some unfortunate situations during the quiet time of the year. A good solution may be for the Chamber to fund an attendant for the CMA facilities, during the off season. As a matter of principle, I do not frequent places that display signs such as “for customers only” , or “no public restroom.” It seems short sighted for a business owner to insult customers prior to entering their business. The restaurant at the north end had a sign $5.00 to use the restroom. Prior to that, they posted a “restrooms for customers only sign.” I guess that others did not like the affront, as they are now out of business. Hope others come up with more ideas to keep our visitors comfortable in our town for all seasons!