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This cartoon has four panels. All the panels show a gritty commercial doorway – the kind that’s recessed a few feet into the building – on a city sidewalk. There’s litter and graffiti here.
There are two characters in the comic strip. The first character is a homeless man sleeping in the doorway, wearing a zip-up sweatshirt over a t-shirt and a dull red knit cap, and with a full beard. The other character is a muscular-looking cop dressed in a police uniform and carrying a baton. In defiance of tradition, he is cleanshaven. I’ll call these two characters KNITCAP and COP.
PANEL 1
Knitcap, covered by a brown blanket and with his head pillowed on some rolled-up clothes, is lying in a doorway, apparently asleep. The cop is using his baton to poke knitcap in the side. The cop has a somewhat sadistic grin.
COP: Hey, you! Get up! We’ve outlawed sleeping in public! You’re not allowed anymore!
PANEL 2
Knitcap is sitting up, rubbing sleep out of his eyes with one hand. He speaks calmly. The cop watches, smirking, arms akimbo.
KNITCAP: In that case, I guess I’ll sleep in a hotel tonight.
PANEL 3
A close-up of Knitcap. He’s stroking his chin with a hand, as if thinking through his options.
KNITCAP: Or should I sleep in my townhouse instead? Or my Hamptons place? I’ll call my butler and ask what he thinks!
PANEL 4
Knitcap, grinning, is now holding a hand next to his face, thumb and pinky finger extended, pretending it’s a phone as he talks. The cop is glaring and slapping his baton against his palm.
KNITCAP: Smithers? Smithers old boy! My super fun street sleeping holiday is done. Which of my mansions shall I sleep in tonight.
COP (thought): Next step: Outlaw sarcasm.
Or you could just give them homes for a lower cost than criminalizing and incarcerating them.
You’re pretty aggressive trying to give away someone else’s money.
Maybe you could aggressively give away your own money and get them a hotel room to start.
Or you can since you seem to be the one so against reasonable limits be placed on housing costs. Or it seems more like you don't give a shit about them and don't want them inconveniencing you or even in your line of sight.
I never made any statement referencing housing costs.
Shitting in full view of a hotel, yep I’m not for that.
Were there some free accessible public toilets in the vicinity?
I’m not the toilet police, if you want to map out all public toilets and distribute a map to the homeless, please be my guest.
I'm serious though.
I'm French so the issue might not be exactly the same in the USA.
But in most of our major cities there used to be a lot of public toilets. Granted they weren't very sanitary but they gave everyone a reasonable access to the basic necessity of shitting in peace.
Then - due to shrinking budgets and stupid policies - they almost disappeared. Now you have a few "self cleaning" ones but very few and far between.
And yeah there are maps available at least for Paris but it's pretty useless if you've got a 20' walk to do your deed.
I apologize I thought you were being facetious. Generally speaking in the US most stores, gas stations and restaurants allow public access to restroom facilities. In some places (usually in downtown districts) you may be required to buy something or use their services but no one really enforces that rule unless their facilities are being abused.
There is no real restroom map, it’s just assumed you can use the restroom at a given store. There are “public” restrooms in parks, city halls, etc. but not nearly to the same scale as private facilities.
Thanks for the response.
There are private restrooms in restaurants, cafés, etc here too. But if you look a bit rough you might be denied access.
Parks often don't have much in terms of amenities though.