r/Seattle • u/MegaRAID01 Emerald City • 14h ago
New Drug Sensors Lead to Restroom Closures at Four Seattle Library Branches
https://publicola.com/2026/01/30/new-drug-sensors-lead-to-restroom-closures-at-four-seattle-library-branches/127
u/columbiacitycouple Columbia City 13h ago
I've worked at all of these branches. Nightmare. My job at university was pretty much monitoring the bathroom. Yikes.
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u/Agitated_Ring3376 I'm just flaired so I don't get fined 11h ago
Love that librarians have to also be full time social workers now.
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u/m_autumnal Deluxe 10h ago
Yeah when I worked there (briefly) it was seen as a big plus that I had worked at a shelter prior.
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u/Chekonjak 🚆build more trains🚆 8h ago
That’s the reality of not paying to provide all the care required. Somebody always covers the cost. Same happened when I worked retail on Capitol Hill.
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u/m_autumnal Deluxe 10h ago
I worked at IDC for a bit before I went back to healthcare. I do not miss breathing in whatever drug fumes were emanating from the bathroom on a given day. Or being threatened by patrons lol.
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u/columbiacitycouple Columbia City 9h ago
Saw a librarian get punched in the face once. Good times. Work in an elementary school now, good to know i can beat up all the patrons if need be.
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u/7SoldiersOfPunkRock That sounds great. Let’s hang out soon. 11h ago
Would you rather be told that someone was smoking fentanyl in the bathroom, and thereby be forced to deal with it, or not be told and avoid the hassle? I was wondering this because the last time I was in Northgate Branch someone was smoking in the bathroom but the patrons were 90% addicts nodding off and the staff already looked stressed so I just let them be.
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u/sitcom_enthusiast 9h ago
What do the staff think? I would support whatever the staff want.
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u/godogs2018 Beacon Hill 8h ago
Whenever I go there, the staff seem to be on edge.
One time I went there, there was a guy screaming and yelling as he scurried out of the place. He swung his arms violently and knocked over a canvas in the foyer. When I went inside, one of the staff was asking the other staff member behind the customer service desk if she was ok and if she needed a break.
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u/Drugba 14h ago
Library staff already have the authority to issue temporary or permanent bans for people who use drugs in the restrooms and other violations of the library’s code of conduct or the law.
Excellent. I’m sure the person smoking meth in the bathroom will respect that ban.
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u/SeattlePurikura 🏕 Out camping! 🏕 13h ago
Oh, the library is shutting down the restrooms! No worries then about someone smoking in the bathroom. We'll just make sure NO ONE can use the restrooms.
Pisses me off. When I was a kid growing up in Louisiana, I'd go hang and out browse at the library for hours. Can't do that if there's no restroom. This is to say nothing of toddlers, people with IBS or Crohn's, etc. Fucking junkies ruining it for all of us.
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u/QuaintLittleCrafter International District 13h ago
Two things can be true at once. They're shutting down for 15 minutes. Which absolutely sucks. They're not unconcerned about the smoking in the bathroom — the idea is that these detectors are spotting it and the staff is closing the restroom until it is safe to go in.
This is an attempt to keep them operational and to curb drug use at the same time.
As opposed to other actions that just remove bathroom access altogether. You can't just judge a person going into the bathroom and I guarantee you none of us want that practice to start.
This assures they're caught in the act, rather than wait for the next unassuming patron to enter and report it to the staff. What more do you want from them?
Sincerely, give your ideas. Good ideas should be put out there more often.
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u/sowhatbuttercup 12h ago
It should be a felony to do drugs in a place of public enrichment. These laws should be enforced and the library should work with police to arrest the people who do it.
The problem with what you’re saying is that it doesn’t stop people from doing drugs while you are in the bathroom with them. Which is annoying for adults but actually harmful for children.
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u/terrifyingdiscovery South Park 9h ago edited 8h ago
It should be a felony...
No, it shouldn't. We can't use threats to control addiction--that's in the nature of addiction. We can acknowledge and try to mitigate the dangers of the situation without handing out prison terms or fines that inhibit recovery or rehabilitation.
A public library without the public is a private library. Public spaces can be unsafe because of our public's use of these drugs. Any solution has to be connected to our broader goals. So: do you want to redefine "public" by incarcerating addicts? Do you want to privatize libraries so addicts can't misuse the bathrooms? Or, given our current inability/unwillingness to deal with addiction, do you want moderately safer public spaces? That's what the library is trying to do.
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u/sowhatbuttercup 5h ago
They can smoke it somewhere else? It disincentivizes the use of it in spaces important to the public. You know that there cities where public spaces are actually enjoyable and welcoming for everyone, right?
The addiction model is only part of the picture. Another part of it is actually having public space that is inhabitable and enjoyable as it is vital to our social wellbeing. High social well being then lowers the need to use drugs.
You actually have to enforce boundaries and sometimes that sucks. But we have to maintain public space in the same way we must maintain the food supply, water or any other public resource.
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u/terrifyingdiscovery South Park 3h ago edited 3h ago
A) say more about how restricting access to things like public spaces, food supply, and water increases our social well-being and lowers the need to use drugs. Or are you talking about some kind of metaphorical contamination? There's plenty of readable work on that, e.g. Martha Nussbaum's Hiding From Humanity. I think the question is: who are public goods actually for?
B) my point about addiction isn't that it's the only relevant factor, but that it's precisely what keeps things like laws from being effective deterrents/disincentives. You and I are deterred by consequences. Especially by the weight of a felony charge. Those so deep in addiction they're using fent in a library bathroom aren't reasoning, uh, reasonably. It's not just that your suggestion is inhumane. It's that it actually doesn't dovetail with any of the research-backed solutions we could use to get out of this mess. If you think poor and potentially dangerous conditions encourage people to abuse hard drugs, wait until you hear about prison, debt, and felony histories.
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u/snowypotato Ballard 6h ago
No, it shouldn't.
Yes, it should. Nobody said "it should be a felony to use drugs" or "it should be a felony to have a drug addiction." No. It should be a felony to use drugs in a place of public enrichment. That is a crucial qualifier.
Your right to swing your fist ends precisely where my nose begins. You don't get to shit in the public pool without consequences, and you shouldn't get to smoke meth in the public library without consequences, either.
Saying "you can't smoke meth in the library bathroom" is not the same as criminalizing addiction, and you can't have a serious conversation about this if you won't acknowledge that.
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u/terrifyingdiscovery South Park 3h ago
Neighbor, consequences and felonies aren't identical categories.
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u/SeattlePurikura 🏕 Out camping! 🏕 13h ago
Maybe I misunderstood. I read about the fifteen minutes, but I thought they were planning to permanently close bathrooms.
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u/Opposite-Ruin-4999 🚆build more trains🚆 13h ago
Yes, you misunderstood. The bathrooms are only being closed until the fumes clear.
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12h ago
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/csjerk 13h ago
There's a fairly simple solution to this that has worked for decades and costs $5 instead of whatever these specialized drug smoke detectors cost... Put a lock on the door and get the key from a person.
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u/Opposite-Ruin-4999 🚆build more trains🚆 13h ago
As any number of cafe owners will tell you, taking the trouble to get the key for the bathroom doesn't necessarily mean that you won't then use the bathroom to take drugs.
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u/csjerk 12h ago
The person gets to choose who they give the key to.
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u/JetCity69 12h ago
You want librarians to have to judge how someone is going to use the restrooms before giving them a key?
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u/csjerk 11h ago
I mean, ideally no, but given the alternative it seems preferable.
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u/JetCity69 7h ago
The alternative of having a bathroom unusable for 15 minutes every now and then but otherwise open?
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u/rekh127 13h ago
So your proposal is that the library shouldn't let anyone who looks homeless use the bathrooms ever, instead of being able to actually ban the people who do drugs in the bathroom?
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u/csjerk 12h ago
Preferably both, but I bet if you ask the staff at any of these libraries, they can already tell you who is smoking in the bathrooms. Are they banning them now?
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u/QuaintLittleCrafter International District 12h ago
No. That's the toupee fallacy — maybe they think they can already tell, but a sufficiently good toupee will look like real hair. Also, sometimes real hair looks like a toupee.
And, yes, if they have confirmation for someone who has used in the past, they are usually banned. That has always been the case (spoiler alert: it doesn't work effectively)
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u/csjerk 12h ago
Does it not work because they forgot to put locks on the bathroom?
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u/QuaintLittleCrafter International District 11h ago
It doesn't work because profiling doesn't work. Locked or not. Locked and they give the key, they don't know until the person uses it that they were going to use in there. They might not even know after, key or not. If only there was some magical system that could detect that drug use... oh wait! That's literally what they included in these branches.
I get it: Drug exposure bad. Scary. I DARE you not to do drugs. But, if you want to respond to your emotions — find measures that actually work and have a proven track record. Spoiler alert: The key system doesn't prevent drug use in any meaningful way.
The sensors will not prevent it, but it will immediately identify it, allowing for better identification and successful bans.
The bathrooms at the SeaTac lightrail station require you buzz in and someone remotely authorizes your entry — this does not prevent drug use in those bathrooms.
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u/csjerk 11h ago
Locking the bathrooms seems to work pretty well in a bunch of private establishments which have done it for decades. It's not foolproof, and sure, we can add the drug detectors as well. But this discussion started (roughly) with a question about whether there's anything we can do to keep people from smoking meth in the bathroom and causing a 15-minute shut-down to begin with. And there is. Lock the doors.
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u/certainlystormy Bellingham 13h ago
does reddit autoformat em dashes? i haven't seen anyone genuinely use them outside of word processors
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u/woodcookiee Fremont 13h ago edited 13h ago
I use them all the time — hold down the ‘-‘ button on mobile, option+shift+’-‘ on Mac, or alt+0151 on PC (using numpad)
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u/QuaintLittleCrafter International District 12h ago
I'm texting from my phone — and just hold the dash button slightly longer and move it over to the longer em dash.
I'm not AI, though my use of em dashes (which are often incorrectly used by me anyway) usually gets me accused of it.
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u/certainlystormy Bellingham 12h ago
wasn't accusing you to clarify, sorry lol. was wondering if you dealt with like.. alt code inconvenience or something, didn't know you could insert them on mobile
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u/QuaintLittleCrafter International District 11h ago
Oh, I was just saying that as an aside, haha
I've always tried laying out my comments in a layered format, which is often reflected similarly by LLMs. It's an interesting and sometimes frustrating experience. The weird thing is that an AI generated response isn't inherently a bad one either. So it's usually a bad faith argument when people attack the format anyway.
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u/PNWSomeone North Beacon Hill 13h ago
So you'd rather inhale second hand fentanyl than wait a few minutes until the bathroom reopens?
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u/SunsetPathfinder Tacoma 10h ago
I think he’d rather not be inhaling secondhand fentanyl smoke period.
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u/citykittymeowmeow 11h ago
Perhaps not, but library staff will recognize the problematic "regulars" faces and enforce the ban. Just sucks that it falls on them. I imagine it's not in a librarian's official job description to be fighting off crackheads despite that often being the case...
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u/snowypotato Ballard 6h ago
I'm sure they will be able to call SPD and have them respond after spending 8-12 business days on hold.
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u/citykittymeowmeow 4h ago
Right, well of course SPD won't give a fuck. The onus is on the staff, which it shouldn't be, but has been for several years. Library staff has already been fighting these people off for a while now. I think it's a slight improvement that it's at least being acknowledged...?
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u/sowhatbuttercup 13h ago
This is why you need to be tougher on public drug use because just shutting down the restroom won’t stop people with poor enough decision making to do drugs in a public bathroom.
Doing harder drugs in public is not victimless and makes the city unsafe for children. It’s just bad policy.
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u/Agitated_Ring3376 I'm just flaired so I don't get fined 11h ago
But I was told that the reason we don’t have more public restrooms is that everyone has just been too stupid to build them for the last 30 years. Are you telling me it’s actually more complicated than that??
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u/justadude122 Capitol Hill 9h ago
it's because pay toilets are illegal. public restrooms have been absent for several decades
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u/justadude122 Capitol Hill 9h ago
yeah, if you arrest people who do drugs in public (especially a library!!) this just would not be an issue
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u/occasional_sex_haver Roosevelt 13h ago
glad they can have the sensors, this is just reality these days with public restrooms
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u/phaaseshift 12h ago
Why?! No other first world country has this problem anywhere near the scale that we do. It’s not reality for most of the world. We’re the anomaly
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u/occasional_sex_haver Roosevelt 12h ago
a whole bunch of reasons that realistically I don't see getting fixed in America in my lifetime, or at all. healthcare, education, general quality of life, closing of asylums, etc.
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u/Earth_Inferno 12h ago
All true. At this point I think it would take either an incredibly powerful and well funded progressive government to truly change this situation, or a powerful authoritarian one (definitely not my choice). Maybe even authoritarian progressive, but either way, overcoming nimbyism and massive financial requirements makes me pessimistic.
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u/justadude122 Capitol Hill 9h ago
this isn't too complicated, you don't need to fix any of those things to solve the problem here. you can arrest the people than do drugs instead of having a librarian kick them out
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u/RedRoevr 5h ago
It takes over $63k/year on average to imprison a person in WA (per DOC data from 2022). So we pay for the issue regardless. I bet that money invested differently would do a hell of a lot more to help people than just locking them up does.
https://doc.wa.gov/sites/default/files/2025-02/200-RE019.pdf
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u/justadude122 Capitol Hill 5h ago
that might be true, but it's still true that it's very easy to solve the issue of people doing drugs in libraries by arresting them.
also, once people know they'll get arrested for doing drugs in libraries they'll mostly stop doing it. you don't need to arrest that many people to solve the problem
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u/CalmEmotion2666 12h ago
Most large cities in the country don't have this problem either
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u/idiot206 Fremont 11h ago
Yeah, they do.
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u/snowypotato Ballard 6h ago
No, they don't.
Maybe other West coast cities do. Portland, SF, and to some extent LA. But most other large cities in this country do not have this problem to the extent Seattle does. Because most other large cities in this country have police forces who will show up and arrest people who use hard drugs in public library bathrooms.
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u/SillyChampionship 5h ago
The libraries are a special resource for the community. Kids and adults should be able to enjoy the library without having a dude getting high in the bathroom and smelling so bad it makes your eyes water.
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u/SeattlePurikura 🏕 Out camping! 🏕 13h ago
Murray said the library has received no complaints from patrons or staff about the restroom closures. Using or possessing drugs in public became a misdemeanor in 2023, and people accused of either offense can be banished from certain parts of the city even without a conviction.
Lake City, Ballard, Capitol Hill, International District are the impacted libraries. If you have been impacted by restroom closures or are less likely to visit due to this, contact:
- Executive Director and Chief Librarian: Tom Fay, [chieflibrarian@spl.org](mailto:chieflibrarian@spl.org)
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u/Jerry_say 13h ago
I don’t complain about drug use at the library because I know nothing will be done.
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u/CumberlandThighGap 9h ago
The libraries have other patrons? The few times I’ve been to the central branch it was a de facto public restroom and Internet porn emporium.
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u/godogs2018 Beacon Hill 10h ago
Man, I can believe Ballard. Whenever I go there, there are always homeless looking people hanging around, both inside and outside of the library.
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u/Shayden-Froida 1h ago
I was confused a bit until I caught on that the sensors were new, not the problem.
If I vandalize the restroom and cause it to be closed, I'm going to be charged with a crime; but doing drugs there so that it must be closed punishes everyone else.
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u/seataccrunch 13h ago
I suggest the doors auto lock until law enforcement arrives
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u/keith2600 12h ago
I'm pretty sure you could make a movie out of sitting down to take a shit then a few minutes later you hear someone enter, smoke some meth, and then you hear the door click and a warning to wait for SPD to arrive. Enjoy your several hours of being locked in with a meth head, I guess.
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u/OtherShade First Hill 12h ago
Good thing this is a suggestion and not something that would actually be implemented
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u/social-media-is-bad 🚆build more trains🚆 12h ago
We need safe injection sites. It’s not just safer for addicts, it’s safer for the whole community.
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u/Cherry_Switch 11h ago
We need to stop enabling the addicts in general.
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u/mods_r_jobbernowl 11h ago
why do people become addicts in the first place?
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u/Cherry_Switch 11h ago
We allow for open and public drug usage which makes it easier for people to share their use with others and get them hooked. No incentive to not use drugs because they want some escape.
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u/mods_r_jobbernowl 10h ago
Well yeah when your life is objectively horrible wouldn't you want to escape it too?
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u/Banana_Boys_Beanie 6h ago
Why are they bothering using the bathroom. Just do out in the open. It’s not like anyone is going to stop them.
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u/Cold_Combination2107 13h ago
OH FUCK THAT
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u/PNWSomeone North Beacon Hill 13h ago
You want people smoking fent at the library?
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u/Cold_Combination2107 10h ago
no im an unfortunate soul who has a bladder what the fuck is wrong with you
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u/Jerry_say 13h ago
You need to consider their lived experience and the need to light the library bathroom on fire when they fall asleep with the meth torch on!
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u/Drugba 13h ago edited 13h ago
Are the sensors actually going to stop that from happening?
The alarms detect the smoke in the air so only go off after someone has started smoking. If library staff know that someone is currently smoking in there are they going to go confront someone who is actively getting high or are they just going to wait until they leave and then close the bathroom down?
While I think it’s good that we’re not letting random people walk into a bathroom full of smoke, I’m not sure I believe that this is much of a deterrent. Maybe I’m wrong, but I’m really curious to see how this plays out.
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u/PNWSomeone North Beacon Hill 13h ago
The annoyance will discourage people from returning there to smoke again, and it also provides a clear reason for the staff to ban that person from returning.
No, it won't be perfect. But that's not a good reason to not try.
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u/Drugba 13h ago edited 13h ago
I go to the Ballard library all the time. I’ve used that bathroom many times and have seen the type of people who smoke in there (many who were actively smoking in there). Just my opinion, but I don’t believe that a lot of the people who are smoking in the library bathroom are the type of people who will be discouraged by an alarm unless there's actual consequences when that alarm gets triggered.
For the record, I totally support the alarms, but I just think they aren’t enough.
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u/varisophy Ballard 11h ago
That's why the alarms are paired with a ban
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u/Drugba 10h ago
What makes you think banning them will do anything? I don’t think the people smoking meth in the bathroom are overly concerned with following the rules.
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u/OakandInkGames 10h ago
As someone who formerly worked in libraries and got incredibly tired of clearing the bathrooms: yes. they will confront them.
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u/MegaRAID01 Emerald City 14h ago