I've often felt the bathroom situation in Santa Cruz (which has a large number of restaurants and coffee shops) could be resolved by ordinance.

If the Santa Cruz City Council would simply legislate that any restaurant that has sit down service be required to provide adequate sanitary facilities for its customers, we would not have this critical bathroom shortage such as exists now.

Lacking such legislation, what we have are a few overburdened businesses who are providing both the service and paying the higher operating costs for other less hospitable business owners.

This penalizes the public service minded businesses while rewarding those with only their self-interest and bottom line of profitability in mind.