Nov
2
Stephen Lamb, in his letter to the James Bay Beacon in October, brings up points many people, including those managing the washrooms in James Bay Square Mall, must have considered. He misses my point, though, and trivializes the plight of those who are now unable to access the washrooms easily. My point is that we are failing to help vulnerable members of our society.
Recently, while walking through the mall, I came upon an elderly woman leaning on her walker at the washroom door, distressed and a bit panicky. She'd forgotten the access-code number and couldn't get in. What would the outcome have been had I not happened along and keyed in the code for her?
Lamb calls this a "sometimes embarrassing inconvenience". An urgent need to relieve oneself is much more than that. With locked washrooms, some members of our community will be hesitant, or even unable, to go out to shop, and this is often their only outing. Not everyone lives close enough to be able to get home quickly when "nature" calls; nor will some people have time to get to the nearest shop and ask for the access code. Others, as in the case of the woman above, won't necessarily remember it. Even keying in the simple code is, for them, a challenge.
Yes, I expressed dismay and sadness in my earlier letter, "bemoaning" the lockdown, as Lamb puts it. How could a person not feel sad when seeing one of our elderly citizens in such distress? How often is this happening?
There will always be "less than acceptable behaviour" by "less than desirable individuals", as Lamb says in his justification of the owners' actions. "What other action could management take?" he asks. Here's a suggestion: Management could do what other malls do--respect patrons' needs by providing security to prevent "less than acceptable" behaviour, as well as providing adequate janitorial staff to clean the washrooms. The mall owners have opted for the cheapest solution--but at what individual and social cost? It's obviously not easy to administer a shopping mall properly, but ownership involves more than financial benefits. There's also a duty to care for the people who use the property, many of whom, in this instance, are elderly. The focus should be on caring for the legitimate users, not just on control of those who aren't "desirable".
Lorne Harris