Finding a public bathroom in Los Angeles in a pinch can be a major pain in the ass. Figuratively and otherwise.
It doesn’t matter if you were born and raised here; if you’re a commuter, a transplant, or a tourist, finding a place to relieve yourself in an emergency, in the midst of navigating your way through the city, can feel all-but-impossible.
In a lot of cases, you'll need to buy something, or obtain the bathroom door code or a key, to use the restroom at a restaurant or local store. Others may charge you to go in and some even have strict, employee-only restrooms. If you’re lucky, a local restaurant or corner store employee will sympathize with you and let you use it for free.
Regardless of the situation, the city has a clear problem providing its people access to public restrooms. According to two 2023 reports, there are only 14 public bathrooms for almost 4 million people in the city—yikes, and five publicly available toilets for every 100,000 people.
But the days of looking for a quick place to freshen up may be over. A TikTok user named @Maxwell_is_online has taken it upon himself to provide the public with bathroom codes for a handful of restaurants, grocery stores, and coffee shops.
The saying is true: all heroes don’t wear capes. Indeed, some come equipped with phones and an online following.
Using the tagline, “Let me use your bathroom,” written across his profile, Maxwell has slowly started growing his following on TikTok.
He shares the bathroom codes for different locations that include a Starbucks in Little Tokyo, a Zankou Chicken on South Sepulveda Boulevard, and El Super, a Mexican grocery store on East Gave Avenue.
“Carl’s Jr. on South Figueroa Street, bathroom code 2004#,” he shares in a video.
The anonymous bathroom activist, who did not answer our requests for comment, has collected 40 codes thus far and has started an online form, where people can submit additional codes for him to share.
His videos are straight to the point and waste no time. Off the bat, he states the name of the place he is visiting—and that’s it. There are no crazy gimmicks.
Currently, only one of the restaurant managers has seen the videos and replied to them in true L.A. fashion, saying: “I’m the Taco Bell manager, and we’ll be changing it (the code) as we speak. Thank you TikTok, fuck you all.”
We will never know whether that’s the actual manager of the particular Taco Bell in question, but we think that finding a place to use the restroom in Los Angeles may have just become a little bit easier.
Follow @Maxwell_is_online for more bathroom codes and contribute to his ongoing catalog of codes.
