Fun Fact: America Used Starbucks As The Country's Public Restroom. Well...

 ...that's about to change:

New York (CNN Business)Twenty years ago, then-New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg was under pressure to build more public bathrooms. He responded with an answer that represents how most of the United States has handled public bathroom access for decades.

"There's enough Starbucks that'll let you use the bathroom," he quipped.

And in fact, private companies like Starbucks (SBUX) did step in for years to offer their public toilets as local and state governments essentially outsourced a public service to private companies.

Starbucks has at times embraced an open-bathroom policy, and shied away from it at others. Now, the coffee chain is effectively saying it can't be America's public toilet any longer.

Last month, Starbucks' interim CEO Howard Schultz said the company might not be able to keep its bathrooms open, blaming a growing mental health problem that poses a threat to its staff and customers. "We have to harden our stores and provide safety for our people," Schultz said at a conference. "I don't know if we can keep our bathrooms open."

Starbucks' re-evaluation of its restrooms highlights the pressing need for local, state and federal government to prioritize public bathroom access.

"The commercial solution is really not a great solution," said Lezlie Lowe, a journalist and author of "No Place to Go: How Public Toilets Fail our Private Needs," published in 2018.

"It's leaving what is clearly, without doubt, a necessary amenity for the use of our cities in the hands of private companies. No rational person would want Starbucks to pay for traffic lights or street lights."

The story goes on to reveal the following:

• There are not enough public restrooms in the US: "In 2011, [Catarina]d e Albuquerque [chief executive officer of the United Nations Sanitation and Water for All global partnership] assessed US water and sanitation services for the United Nations and found that, despite being one of the wealthiest countries in the world, the United States "had woefully inadequate availability of public restrooms" — only eight per 100,000 people on average, the same number as Botswana. Iceland leads the world with 56 toilets per 100,000 people."
• Civil Rights have played a part in the lack of restrooms: "There is no easy answer to how the United States arrived at this conundrum, but public restrooms have long been a political battleground, from segregated Jim Crow facilities to laws that target transgender people." This is expected as policies and programs designed to help everyone will naturally have a positive effect on minority groups; the opposite also applies (to hurt minorities, reduce public programs/facilities).
• Starbucks' new stance isn't exactly motivated by a desire for the government to step up: "This month, Starbucks said it was closing 16 stores, citing safety concerns. In an open letter outlining the steps Starbucks is taking to try to keep workers safe, members of the US leadership team listed "closing restrooms" as part of the effort. The changes come as Starbucks fights a growing unionization drive."