Is It Wrong? (What Would You Do?)

Is it wrong to relieve yourself on the floor of an establishment that has restrooms but denies the public access to them?  Some would say 'absolutely' as a knee-jerk reaction, but consider this:  access to clean, accessible public bathrooms is considered a basic human right by the United Nations & is part of their Sustainable Development Goals that includes 'clean water & sanitation' to be met by 2030.  While developing nations without indoor plumbing come to mind when you read this, the United States suffers from a severe and self-inflicted lack of public bathrooms as businesses steadily restricted access to them through the 20th Century and continue doing so in the 21st Century.  

According to a 2023 NY Times article, the U.S. has an average of 8 public bathrooms per 100,000 people while 56 per 100,000 is the norm in Iceland.  In NYC, it's FOUR per 100,000.  That is unacceptable.  How'd we get here?  As with all our current 3rd world problems, it wasn't always this way.  In the 1930s, more than 2 million public latrines were added in rural areas, parks & public lands as well as busy urban gathering spots like Central Park.  But maintenance of public toilets fell by the wayside starting in the '70s as budget cuts became the norm.  The use of public restrooms for sexual encounters, illicit drug use & other non-excretory needs led many business owners to shutter their stalls to everyone but paying customers, or in some cases, even them. 

Clean public bathrooms are a human right.

Adding to the problem are laws that criminalize public urination, with some states putting public pissers on the sex offense registry, charging them with 'public lewdness' or 'indecent exposure' for the simple act of relieving themselves in public.  That doesn't leave very many options for people out in public who need to urinate, now does it?  Whether you're traveling the country by car, visiting a busy downtown area for an event like Mardi Gras or New Year's Eve or simply venturing out of your home for a day of shopping & dining out, you run the very real risk of being denied bathroom access when you desperately need to go, resulting in a public accident.  

12 states where you can land on the sex offender registry for public pissing.

It is in this setting that I pose the original question:  Is it morally wrong to use your pants in front of a business owner when denied access to its fully functional toilets?  Why or why not? 

Here's my official stance:  While I understand and empathize with business owners who get sick of cleaning shit off the walls & dealing with junkies who have OD'ed on fentanyl in their restrooms, you get paid to run a BUSINESS, and operational toilets are part of the cost of doing business.  (You also have a right to refuse service to anyone and that includes people who look like they're about to go in the bathroom and shoot up or otherwise cause a ruckus.  Dress codes & other nifty little rules can help weed out bad apples, though you obviously won't catch everybody).  If governments don't want to write laws forcing business owners to open their facilities to the public, they should be responsible for building & maintaining a sufficient number of government-owned bathrooms effective immediately. 

Until such time as public restrooms become available to the masses, I encourage all Omo lovers and anyone else to do their business right in the middle of these establishments where the heartless owners can see the real-world consequences of their actions.  I'm not suggesting going out of your way to "protest pee" in public, nor am I advocating pulling your pants down and exposing yourself, but if you're going to have an accident anyway, let them SEE it.  And clean it up.  Maybe they'll think twice about how their choice to hoard toilets affects the public.  Maybe not, but it's worth a shot.  If they don't like it, they can easily prevent it in the future by simply granting people access to their toilets.  This would be a far more ethical way to pee in public than ruining some sales associate's day by pissing in the dressing room of a clothing store, and it might actually help get bad policy changed.  

What are your thoughts on the U.S. bathroom shortage?  What should a desperate traveler do when confronted by a cruel cornerstore clerk who says NO RESTROOMS despite restrooms being visible in their establishment?