Public toilets for the peninsula

Maybe the city's new Toilet Task Force will provide some badly needed relief to the restroom situation on Charleston's lower peninsula. As our reports have amply described, more public accommodations would benefit visitors to the historic district.

Mayor Joe Riley created the task force, primarily comprised of city staffers, following reporter Glenn Smith's accounts of the problem. Those reports included interviews with tourists at the Battery who described the problems they faced just finding a public restroom.

As Mr. Smith wrote: "The city has some 15 public toilets sprinkled about the peninsula, but locating one can seem a bit like a scavenger hunt at times. Some are marked by signs; some are not. Some close at 5 p.m., others at 8. One isn't open on Mondays. Another is frequently locked. Municipal parking garages have public toilets, but many privates ones do not. But how does the average person tell them apart?"

The nearest public restroom to the Battery is at Hazel Parker playground on East Bay Street, where a sign tells visitors to go somewhere else. (See the letter to the editor and accompanying photo.) The first thing the city should do is to remove that sign, and put another one outside the park informing the public of a restroom inside.

Today's feature letter, signed by 19 people who either live in or own property in the Fort Sumter House, describes the problem, which includes ad hoc use by visitors to White Point Garden and the Battery of public and private property. An earlier letter to the editor from Fred Sales, a docent lecturer at two historic homes, urged the city to build an architecturally appropriate facility at White Point Garden, staff it and charge for its use.

With only a single public bathroom south of Broad -- currently off limits -- the city should be willing to provide more accommodations.

The question for the task force shouldn't be whether but where.