....© 2000, Kimit A. Muston
I must be older than I think. I can remember when there was lots of advertising in public restrooms but the only official kind was for devices intended "only for the prevention of disease". My, how times have changed.
The MTA - the folks the Bus Riders Union love to hate - have just signed a deal for $50 million in outdoor toilets. They have done this because the MTA doesn't have any toilets of their own, at least not for the paying customers.
If this were France $50 million would provide toilets for the entire city, but in this case we are only going to get ten. Toilets that cost $5 million apiece? "Outrageous!" you might say. "We won't pay it!" you might say. Well, hold your breath. You won't have to pay a dime for them. Something for nothing? Well, not quite.
You see, in modern America, where capitalism is God and the answer to all problems, you don't get toilets from plumbing supply companies. You get them from advertising agencies, in this case a billboard company, STI Outdoor. It does make sense, even beyond the idea that most advertising should be flushed, because if you think about it a toilet is just a four sided billboard with some plumbing on the inside. At least that's the way STI thinks of toilets.
What kind of ads might fill this billboard? Well, an entire list of products leaps to mind should these structures end up resembling most of the public restrooms I have seen; deodorant, disinfectant and maybe a photo of a roll of toilet paper with the caption, "Don't you wish you had some Charmin right now?"
But we are assured these are not the public toilets of my youth. These are the most modern high tech toilets ever designed by man. We know they were designed by man because they clean themselves, which is the only way most men's bathrooms ever get cleaned.
Clean themselves? Yes, sort of like a cross between a dish washer and a phone booth. Once a day, when the toilet detects it is empty, the door closes and locks shut. Then the inside is blasted with steaming hot water, disinfectant and detergent. It is clever and simple and as long as patrons register on the motion detectors inside, perfectly safe.
So, they're not going to cost us anything. We don't even have to clean them. And, as part of the deal, STI provides the MTA 5% of the ad space for their own use, a million bucks in free radio time, $750,000 in fees and 10% of the revenue STI makes selling the other 95% of the space on the toilets. The only drawback, as far as I can see, is that we are only getting ten of these little porcelain jewels.
And we all flushed happily ever after, right? Ah, if only life in L.A. were that simple. I suspect that if Jehovah himself suddenly appeared atop Mount Hollywood and offered the entire city peace and prosperity in exchange for a diet Coke, somebody would bitch.
In this case, the complaint comes from Hal Bernson, Los Angeles City Councilman. He calls the contract "ridiculous" and "one-sided." Mr. Bernson thinks the city should be getting more of the advertising revenue from the toilets. Where would he get such an idea? Why from another billboard company, of course. One that didn't win the contract.
It seems that Eller Media didn't realize (or didn't ask) if any of the toilets were going to be visible from the freeway. Now that they know they will be, Eller says the toilets should make $150 million over the ten years of the contract. That's $15 million for the MTA, but Eller says they should be getting more.
How nice of Eller Media to worry the MTA might be getting cheated. I wonder if they were that concerned before they lost the contract.
Well, maybe the MTA could have made better deal. And maybe Eller Media is feeding Mr. Bernson a line of waste material. I'm no expert on toilets, thank Jehovah, but free toilets plus 10% of the advertising sounds darn good to me.
And as a person who has been known to use public transit I think any toilet deal is better than no toilet deal, because no toilet when you need one is a very big deal indeed.
Kimit Muston is a writer living in North Hollywood. He can be contacted about his column at Inditer dot com.