Delia Portlock, Christine Williams and Sue Wild outside the public toilets in Werribee. 88747 Picture: JOE MASTROIANNI
By XAVIER SMERDON
RESTAURANTS in Wyndham have been criticised for using disabled toilets as storage and treating their disabled customers like “fourth class citizens”.
Members from the Wyndham Disability Action Group (WYNDAG) told Star last week that they had been left feeling embarrassed after one Point Cook restaurant became the latest to use its disabled toilet for storage.
“I was disgusted,” WYNDAG Secretary Sue Wild said.
“You couldn’t open the door and all the boxes and mops were in the way.
“When I approached them about it their excuse was we’re in the middle of Spring cleaning.”
If toilets in a restaurant are not available, many disabled people are forced to use public toilets, which former WYNDAG Chairperson Christine Williams said were substandard.
“You wheel in our shoes for a day and you’ll soon find out how bad the situation is,” Ms Williams said.
“It’s dreadful to think that I have now resorted to encroaching on a private business and using their toilets because there is nothing else for me to use.”
Delia Portlock, who has an acquired brain injury from a car accident and requires a scooter to get around, said she now had to plan her day on the assumption that she would not be able to go to the toilet if she left her house.
The group said they would like to new regulations introduced so restaurant owners were made to ensure that disabled toilets were always accessible.
“We would rather that they (business owners) voluntarily came on board,” Ms Williams said.
‘We’d like them to do it in the spirit of goodwill.”
