Tennessee lawmakers filed thousands of bills during the most recent legislative session, but only a few hundred passed muster and became laws.
Today, we start a new chapter in my "New Law A Day" blogs, a popular feature started last year. Some of the laws I or someone here at WDEF News 12 may have reported on for our on-air broadcasts. Some of the laws you probably had no idea got passed. And some of the laws come from the files of "I thought that was a law already."
Lawmakers could have called House Bill 122 the "when you gotta go, you gotta go" act, but elected for something a little more mundane: The "Restroom Access Act." That's right, we needed a law to make it legal to go potty in certain locations.
The "Restroom Access Act" mandates that a retail establishment that has a toilet facility for its employees shall allow a customer to use that facility during normal business hours. First though, you have to meet all of the following conditions:
- The customer requesting the use of the employee toilet facility suffers from an eligible medical condition or utilizes an ostomy device.
- Three or more employees of the retail establishment are working at the time the customer requests use of the employee toilet facility.
- The retail establishment does not normally make a restroom available to the public.
- The employee toilet facility is not located in an area where providing access would create an obvious health or safety risk to the customer or an obvious security risk to the retail establishment.
- A public restroom is not immediately accessible to the customer.
Retail establishments are not required to make any physical changes to an employee toilet facility under this act. Employee's violating the law, could receive a Class C misdemeanor, making them subject to a fine of $50.
One more stipulation if you want to use their "facility," you need to prove to the employee you suffer from a medical condition. The law states proof can take the form of a document issued by a licensed physician or the Crohn's & Colitis Foundation of America.
Wouldn't it just be easier to ask nicely?
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