Английская Википедия:Committee to End Pay Toilets in America
Шаблон:Short description Шаблон:Infobox organization
The Committee to End Pay Toilets in America, or CEPTIA, was a 1970s grass-roots political organization which was one of the main forces behind the elimination of pay toilets in many American cities and states.
History
Founded in 1970 by nineteen-year-old Ira Gessel, the Committee's purpose was to "eliminate pay toilets in the U.S. through legislation and public pressure."[1][2][3]
Starting a national crusade to cast away coin-operated commodes, Gessel told newsmen, "You can have a fifty-dollar bill, but if you don't have a dime, that metal box is between you and relief."[4] Membership in the organization cost only $0.25, and members received the Committee's newsletter, the Free Toilet Paper. Headquartered in Dayton, Ohio, U.S., the group had as many as 1,500 members, in seven chapters.[1]
The group also sponsored the Thomas Crapper Memorial Award, which was given to "the person who has made an outstanding contribution to the cause of CEPTIA and free toilets."[1]
In 1973, Chicago became the first American city to act when the city council voted 37–8 in support of a ban on pay toilets in that city. According to at least one source, this was "... a direct response, evidently," to CEPTIA.[4][5][6]
Achievements
According to The Wall Street Journal, there were, in 1974, at least 50,000 pay toilets in America, mostly made by the Nik-O-Lok Company. Despite this flourishing commerce, CEPTIA was successful over the next few years in obtaining bans in New York, New Jersey, Minnesota, California, Florida, and Ohio.[7] Lobbying was so successful that by June 1976, twelve states had enacted bans and the group announced that it was disbanding, declaring its mission mostly achieved.[8]
Criticism
While CEPTIA's campaign was successful in largely eliminating pay toilets in the United States, critics charge that the result was not a flourishing of free public toilets, but rather many fewer public toilets of any sort than in other countries that did not see a movement against pay toilets.[9][10] In recent years, commentators have called for a reconsideration of the pay toilet bans in the hope of making public toilets more widely available.[11]
References
- Английская Википедия
- Страницы с неработающими файловыми ссылками
- Organizations based in Dayton, Ohio
- Political organizations based in the United States
- Defunct organizations based in Ohio
- Toilets
- Страницы, где используется шаблон "Навигационная таблица/Телепорт"
- Страницы с телепортом
- Википедия
- Статья из Википедии
- Статья из Английской Википедии
