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>>The police probably shouldn’t have looked up the license plate. However, it is a pet peeve of mine that businesses that maintain restrooms for their customers get taken advantage of by people who stop but do not purchase anything.<<

I can assure you the businesses don’t feel that way. Not only are you ignorant of the fact that the individual may be a regular customer all but the time you see them, you’re thinking of it like its your home with someone ringing the doorbell to come and use your bathroom. Businesses with public restrooms don’t care if one hundred or one thousand visit them. But the more people that come into their store for ANY reason, the better. If they don’t come in, they won’t buy. If they do, they might.

I will grant you the very small mom and pops feel like you do, but for the bigger chains, toilet supplies cost almost nothing compared to their annual revenue.

I had to go really bad one evening and I went in to this restaraunt. There was a sign that said you had to purchase something to use the restroom and I’m reaching in my back pocket to pull out some money and order something and as I approached the counter the woman started yelling that I couldn’t use the restroom if I wasn’t a customer. Whoa, I yelled back and it wasn’t very lady-like, I will never eat there and it has been over 20 years.

Unless they have a posted sign the bathroom is assumed to be available to anyone in the building. I have seen such signs in Chicago McDonalds, but the only way it is enforceable is by putting a lock on the door and only giving the key to someone who buys something. The one I went into even hired a security guard whose only job seemed to be potty patrol.

I hope this policeman gets some sort of reprimand. He may say he looked up her identity because he had cause to believe she had committed a crime (which I believe is a lie), but he had no justification in giving out her address to the staff at McDonald’s for their schoolyard brand of vigilante justice.

The sheriff said that, at the time, he had probable cause to run Barnes' tag, because he was investigating it as a possible crime.

This sheriff is an idiot. Stopping at a restaurant to use the bathroom is now a "crime"? Really. I think most restaurants will gladly give you a glass of water gratis if you ask. And I've never heard of a restaurant denying someone using the restroom. It's called good will. It's called treating your customers and potential customers with respect.

I'd imagine this restaurant is going to lose more than the $5 in business over this bone-head move they made in conjunction with their ignorant local sheriff.