Who Keeps Blowing Up the Toilets at Denver Parks Lately?
By Shawn Patrick on July 18, 2023
No, the title of this article isn’t a bad joke… Someone keeps literally blowing up toilets around Denver lately!
According to FOX31, officials with the parks department said over the last month, its lost 10 portable toilets to vandalism. It has also had damage to permanent restrooms on an ongoing basis. This year all the copper tubing was stolen out of the Ruby Hill restroom. The toilets in the restroom on the Diagonal at Washington Park have been blown up four times over the last 16 months, including the first week of July this year.
The city shared the following additional statements with FOX31:
We try our best to manage for this, but it is incredibly hard to respond to the on-going damage to our public facilities.
Due to ADA compliance requirements and current staffing shortages, we are prioritizing the opening and operating hours of plumbed restrooms to support youth programming, youth athletics and permitting. DPR will open functional plumbed restrooms and they will be accessible between the hours of 9 a.m. – 2 p.m., 7-days a week. We will not be keeping restrooms open longer hours due to staffing shortages and the potential for damage and vandalism to plumbed restrooms across the parks system.
At this time, out of the 30 plumbed restrooms, 13 of those are closed to vandalism and theft of plumbing and piping in the restrooms. To address the closure of the plumbed restrooms, we have placed an ADA portable restroom at these sites to provide service when the restrooms are closed.
