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Stephanie Fraser says she found out her local Winners and HomeSense closed its bathrooms the hard way.
“My stomach wasn’t feeling fantastic,” Fraser, who lives in Thunder Bay, Ont., told CBC News.
Fraser, 33, has diverticulitis, a type of inflammatory bowel disease. So she is typically aware of the availability of washrooms anywhere she goes. And HomeSense always had accessible facilities, she said.
But two weeks ago, that changed, she said. When Fraser went to access the bathrooms in the discount home furnishings store, she says they were taped off and an employee told her the facilities were permanently closed.
“It’s a really odd decision,” Fraser said. “It creates a barrier for folks like me. You can’t even enjoy a shopping experience.”
Fraser is one of several frustrated shoppers who allege the TJX-owned chains Winners, HomeSense and Marshalls have recently shut down their bathrooms in some Canadian locations. On social media, customers in several cities including Ottawa, Montreal, Toronto, Thunder Bay and Dartmouth, N.S., say stores in their location no longer have bathroom access.
An official spokesperson for Winners and HomeSense told CBC News stores haven’t shut down their bathrooms, but that, “on occasion, we may need to temporarily close restrooms for various reasons.”
“Less than 10 washrooms across our Canadian locations are currently closed for various reasons. We have no plans to close all of our washrooms,” the spokesperson said in a written statement Friday.
In general, private businesses don’t have a legal obligation to provide bathrooms to customers unless they offer sit-down dining or are governed by specific local bylaws. But for those that do offer bathrooms, an industry expert says there’s a larger overall trend recently of restricting access as retailers try to balance customer needs with safety and operational realities.
In Facebook groups, for instance, some employees of Winners, HomeSense and Marshalls have described feces-smeared bathroom walls, finding used needles on bathroom floors and people flushing security tags down the toilets.
“As someone who has to deal with the cleaning of the washrooms, you would understand if you had to do so,” someone commented last week in the Winners, Marshalls, HomeSense Ontario Facebook page, followed by a vomit emoji.
When CBC asked the company spokesperson about the claims made by employees on social media, they said they have nothing further to add.
WATCH | Why Ottawa needs a downtown bathroom plan:
Coun. Ariel Troster says people shouldn’t have to walk more than 10 minutes for a toilet, and is pushing for more facilities modelled after one that was approved to open on Bank and Somerset streets. But city council heard that washroom is already $400,000 over budget. CBC’s Arthur White-Crummey was at the meeting.
Part of a broader shift
The decision by some retailers to close or restrict access to in-store bathrooms reflects a broader shift in how stores are managing safety, operations and rising retail crime, said Santo Ligotti, vice-president of marketing and member services for the Retail Council of Canada.
“Bathrooms have increasingly become higher-risk areas within stores.”
They’re often unmonitored spaces, making them ideal locations for someone to conceal an item and steal it, Ligotti said. Then there’s the maintenance, monitoring, cleaning and upkeep, he said.
There are also unsafe situations that can arise in these spaces that front-line retail employees are simply not trained to handle, Ligotti added.
In 2022, a Tim Hortons in Woodstock, Ont., made headlines for installing blue lights in its washrooms to deter drug use by making it harder to see veins. Other locations, and other businesses in Canada, have done the same.
While research on the risks of business bathrooms is limited, small-scale exploratory studies highlight significant concerns.
In a 2019 University of Guelph study, researchers interviewed 15 restaurant and café workers in downtown Toronto; nearly all participants reported dealing with hazardous waste, including blood and feces. Half had encountered used needles and two reported witnessing overdoses.
Similarly, a 2017 study of 86 business managers in highly impacted New York City neighborhoods found that more than half had encountered drug use in their restrooms in the past six months.
This is also an issue in public bathrooms. For instance, earlier in April, Ottawa’s public transit authority temporarily closed bathrooms at LRT stations due to vandalism and needle use.
“When combined with the risks, some retailers are reassessing whether open access is sustainable,” Ligotti said.
Uproar and confusion online
Over the past month, there has been a bit of an uproar online over Winners, HomeSense and Marshalls bathrooms, with some angry customers saying they won’t continue to shop there without access to facilities and some frustrated employees describing safety issues they’ve had to contend with.
“A store that size, where people sometimes spend an hour or two looking around, needs a public bathroom,” someone commented three weeks ago on a Reddit post out of Thunder Bay.
“What is up with Winners and HomeSense … closing down the bathrooms? I’m on mat leave with a baby and come often. Such an inconvenience,” someone wrote April 2 on the Winners, HomeSense and Marshall’s Finds Facebook page.
Even in 2024, on the Winners Canada Facebook page, a customer wrote that the washrooms were roped off at a location in Burnaby, B.C.
“Found associate and she told me … washrooms are permanently closed for customers and employees health and safety. This is not transparent,” the customer said.
But there’s also been some confusion online about which locations have actually shut bathrooms and when. Many commenters have pointed out bathrooms in their locations are still open. And as others have pointed out, some locations may never have had bathrooms in the first place.
In Thunder Bay, Fraser said a friend emailed TJX about their HomeSense bathrooms and a customer service representative wrote that they closed their washrooms for “the safety and security of our associates and customers.” CBC News has viewed the email.
In an additional statement Tuesday, the spokesperson said customers can still access bathrooms in Thunder Bay if they ask a manager, but said they had no other details to add.
“We always aim to offer a great customer experience in our stores,” the spokesperson said.
Downtown Brandon lacks a public bathroom that is consistently open 24/7, but that is about to change. The Manitoba Harm Reduction Network says it’s about time.
Last week, in downtown Toronto, CBC News asked to use the bathroom at Marshalls on John Street, a HomeSense on Spadina Avenue and a Winners on Queen Street West. Staff at all three locations said the bathrooms had been closed for years.
CBC News visited another Winners in Burnaby, B.C., on Saturday. A sign out front said its bathrooms were closed and apologized for the inconvenience.
In downtown Vancouver, however, CBC News visited a Winners, HomeSense and Marshalls, all of which had available bathrooms.
‘It’s not just about a convenience’
For people like Gwendolyn Fox, a senior philanthropy officer at Crohn’s and Colitis Canada who has inflammatory bowel disease, knowing there’s an accessible bathroom close by is “an absolute must before leaving the house.”
“There are less and less places that are willing to open up their bathrooms to people,” Fox said from Montreal.
“It’s not just about a convenience. It’s about access to dignity and the availability to participate in a regular life.”
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Washrooms are an essential part of equitable access to public space, said Edith Wilson Sousa, a PhD candidate and sociology instructor at the University of Guelph in southern Ontario who has researched access to public toilets.
But between the opioid and housing crises, public washrooms — which are owned by a municipality — and private ones that people treat as public — like store bathrooms — have both become places where policy failures in other areas manifest, Sousa told CBC News.
“There’s no doubt that employees of these businesses, who are mostly making minimum wage, are sometimes being put in very difficult, dangerous and potentially traumatic situations,” Sousa said.
Fraser, in Thunder Bay, said she empathizes with the store employees, but hopes her HomeSense will consider reopening its bathrooms.
“Maybe it’s a silly thing to be upset about. But it’s frustrating,” she said. “It just creates that barrier for a lot of people.”
