We all know that it’s really frustrating when you want to go somewhere cool – a stylish restaurant for instance – but you find out that they don’t have a disabled toilet. Yesterday we named and shamed some Michelin star restaurants who fall into that category.
However, what can be equally or maybe even more irritating is when you’re led to believe that the venue does have a disabled toilet only to find out, when you get there, that this supposedly accessible toilet is ill equipped for your needs.
Yet, somehow it is not an uncommon belief that a slightly bigger toilet, with space for a wheelchair but without any grab rails, is the same as a disabled toilet. Many venues will tell you that they have a disabled toilet when this is all they have. We were hearing about so many roomy toilets without actual facilities that we’ve started calling them Quasi Khazis.
It’s pretty simple – much like how if you put lipstick on a pig, it’s still a pig; if you put a disabled toilet sign on a toilet without any grab rails, it’s still not a disabled toilet.
Sure, “wheelchair accessible” is a slightly loosely defined term. Taken quite literally, you could say that a larger toilet cubicle is wheelchair accessible since it is possible for a wheelchair to access it. But we all know that what we really mean when we talk about disabled accessible toilets. They need to have the hand rails and lowered facilities for wheelchair users. It’s infuriating to hear about quasi khazis.
What’s even more annoying about the quasi khazis is how simple it would be to fix the problem. Just fit some hand rails in them and they would become passable disabled toilets. It’s truly baffling as to why venues don’t do that.
So that’s why today we’re putting them on our BBS Bonfire. Much like Dave, George, Boris et al talked about a bonfire of the quangos (an abbreviation of Quasi Non-governmental blah blah blah) today it is time for the bonfire of the quasi khazis!
We’re building up the BBS Bonfire for November the Fifth. What frustration about accessibility would you want to add to the bonfire?
Here are just a few of the venues that were guilty of having Quasi Khazis when we reviewed them:
- Sat Bains, Nottingham
- Boqueria, Brixton
- Hole in the Wall, Cambridge
- Champagne and Fromage, Covent Garden
Yes, yes, yes! I’ve come across this so often!
My M.S. group recently went to a restaurant/café/bar which we were assured had a ‘disabled’ toilet.
It was quite a way out of town (Ipswich) so we all needed to ‘go’ during the afternoon’s get-together.
Not only did it not have grab-rails, but it was only very slightly larger than the ‘normal’ toilet, impossible for a wheel-chair to turn round. Not even a cistern to lean on while manoeuvering.
When questioned, the manager looked blank, and said the toilet was going to be upgraded NEXT YEAR when grab-rails would be put in! What did he think we were going to do that day?! I was not only uncomfortable and distressed, I was fuming.
He did apologise but his restaurant emptied very quickly as we rushed home.