Is it legal for shopping centers to charge you for entering the toilets?

Despite having been shelved four years ago, the project that prohibited the entrance charge to toilets in shopping centers, this issue always opens a discussion table due to the lack of public politics about the construction of free toilets in the streets. The question arises, Is it legal for commercial establishments to ask for a monetary amount to enter the sanitary services?

in conversation with The Republic, jamie delgadoa lawyer and expert in consumer rights, explained that in order to obtain the operating license, all shopping centers must have bathrooms available for their customers, as this is a basic need service.

“There are businesses that, due to their location, have said: ‘You enter, as long as you show me a purchase voucher.’ That is absurd. Why do you have to wait to buy something to meet your physiological needs?”he stressed.

Mostly, These commercial establishments and supermarkets charge between S/0.50 and S/1 for the use of their toilets. There are people who are unfazed by this charge and go unnoticed, but others consider that the payment is unfair. However, according to Delgado, in the absence of an express prohibition law, the Shopping centers make decisions based on their criteria.

no penalty

“Preventing people who are not going to buy from entering bathrooms seems to me an absurd, hostile and aggressive commercial policy. However, the legislation is ambiguous. If you want to wash your hands in a bathroom, you have to pay S/1. There is clearly no penalty for that. There are no regulations that say that all shopping centers are required to do so,” Delgado pointed out.

Let us remember that the aforementioned bill, discussed at the Congressional Consumer Defense Commission in 2016, it was not approved because the members of this working group considered that eliminating the charge would go against the freedom of enterprise. After twists and turns, they only decided to declare the construction of public toilets, by the municipalities, in areas of high public attendance as a public necessity and preferential national interest.

“If I have a restaurant on Abancay avenue whose toilets are only for diners and the law would prohibit charging for toilets, everyone would enter and the authorities would be transferring the responsibility to me due to the non-existence of public toilets,” said Delgado.

Jaime Delgado criticizes the lack of public toilets in the cities of Peru / Photo: Andina

For this reason, it emphasizes the task not executed and long postponed by the municipal authorities, who did not even include this priority issue in their recent local government plans.

Zero public policies to build toilets in cities

“Cities have stopped covering needs. It is intended that private parties assume that responsibility. In a city like Lima, where a significant percentage of the population works on the street, such as police officers, night watchmen, drivers, etc., absolutely nothing has been done. It is an issue that the mayors have not dealt with appropriately,” he criticized.

At another time, the president of the Peruvian Association of Consumers and Users (Aspec), Chrysologist Cáceres, was also against this measure, because, according to what he said, shopping centers are built to meet the physiological needs of all types of consumers, both those who buy and those who do not; as well as those who have S/0.50, as well as those who do not have that economic availability.

“Discrimination cannot be established between one and the other because that is unconstitutional, As provided by art. 2°.2 of the Constitution, by virtue of which all citizens are equal,” said Aspec.