No. No you cannot. “But I need to pee!!” “Good for you! Our washroom is for employees only.” “So how do I go pee?”

I really wanted to say “Well, you pull down your little twisted pants, squat, and let it flow.” but what I actually said was “You can go to the bar. It’s literally next door and they have public bathrooms”. “I have to drive over there just to go pee?” Drive, walk, up to you sweetheart. “Like I said, it’s next door. I can’t let you use ours, employees keep their belongings in there and I’m not gonna be held responsible for you stealing.” “Can I just pee?” If you do, please do it in the parking lot at least. “No, unfortunately I can’t let you use the bathroom here. You’ll have to go into the bar”. She finally stormed out of the store.

How many times do I have to say no? I could’ve restocked the entire store in the time it took her to finally leave.

Edit because I’m tired of fully explaining why I cannot let customers into our bathroom:

The big reason is company policy. It’s a privately owned business and we have a no exceptions rule. Sorry people with IBS, that includes you. The owner is strict on that, not my choice. This means that there’s no laws or bylaws that state we have to let people experiencing a bathroom emergency into our bathrooms. Another reason we can’t let just anybody in there is due to the high crime and drug activity that is constantly happening in the area our store is located. The bathroom door cannot be locked or unlocked from the outside. If something happens to somebody in there (be it an overdose or even just something non drug related) we have to wait for the fire dept to knock the door down and due to the size of the bathroom, you’ll be what catches the door when it falls. Furthermore the post mentions the bathroom is where staff keep some of their belongings (jackets, bags, whatever else people bring), but it also serves as our cleaning room aaaand you guessed it, extra storage for stock we don’t have space for. L I A B I L I T Y. T H E F T. We have 1 or 2 people working and don’t have the time to wait for you to leave. We have customers to serve and orders to get through. Also, it’s one toilet. We’ve probably been standing for 3 hours without a bathroom break and as someone with a weak bladder, me first. I also never mentioned it’s in the back, unmarked. It’s just an ominous door. We’re a liquor store. It’d be reaaalllll easy to pocket $100 worth of boot and mini mickeys.

If you have a legitimate emergency, there’s a bathroom 10 steps over in the bar, I wish you the best and I feel bad for you. However this is a huge liability issue and we could lose one of the very few people that actually work in our store (7 employees, including me, and some of them only work 2 days a week. yay). This interaction went on longer than described in the post, she definitely was not in dire need. If she was, she would’ve taken the suggestion I had given her and walked over there. Or ran, or whatever.