There are many complaints about McDonald’s policies that require consumers to make an actual purchase before they may enter or make use of the restroom facilities, no matter what age or how many persons. Apparently this procedure is followed in all McDonald’s restaurants in the world. The management of all McDonald’s facilities is instructed to use the assistance of security guards to forcefully enforce these policies. All customers must first show a valid receipt from their in restaurant purchase to the security or management person, at the restroom doorway. They do not give you a key or hand it over the counter to you, this is an unreasonable and degrading practice. It could easily be deemed as at the very least an annoyance and in some cases very close to being racist whether intentionally or not is impossible to say.

In theory the use of these kind of policies stems from the consistent problems that McDonald’s locations have experienced with concerning transient, homeless and non-customer related individuals that were coming into locations regularly. These non-customers would enter location restrooms and fail to leave for long periods of time. So it became standard procedure to use the security system with all individuals that were potentially entering the lavatories. This way there was no chance of discrimination against anyone as individuals. Instead all non-customers were treated with a level of harassment that was in keeping with the standard policies, which had been successfully working for the corporation.

If this is truly a standard procedure is followed in all McDonald’s restaurants in the world, there are many customers that would likely be aggravated, annoyed or even more greatly offended to know this. Technically there are no laws being broken by an establishment being allowed to impose such policies upon its non-customers, but perhaps there should be one passed at the state or national level to start with. In the very least, non-customers should be treated with a standard of dignity that would include allowing them to use restrooms in cases where they had full bladders or children that were in sincere need of relieving themselves.

It seems stupid that as a customer, the patron must first pay for food which then must be left unguarded or attended, and only them can they be allowed to go and use the location facilities. Most customers have purchased food on many occasions, during which they did not use the restrooms at all. There needs to be some balance struck, or an attempt at a compromise between these two extremes of customer and non-customer related service standards. It would appear that the policy is actually more of a tactic to get consumers to give more money to the cash registers based on being rushed into payment under duress, but at its worst it is degrading and dehumanizing for the experience of being a McDonald’s customer generally.

Again it must be stated that this procedure is followed in all McDonald’s restaurants in the world is quite literally appalling. The individual must evaluate for themselves and decide just how strongly they feel about such policies, and if they consider them fair and or legal?