Gerhard Lamprecht, Milnerton
The moment that centre management at Paddocks posted the notice that they will charge for public-toilet use I knew there will be a robbery soon (“Fourth armed robbery hits centre,” Tabletalk Letters, January 15).
The notice read that due to security reasons, patrons will have to pay for the use of public toilets.
Instead, I believe due to management not being able to control a few culprits that damage toilets they instead inconvenience their high-income patrons who usually have credit cards but not R2 cash.
It is evident that the inability to deal with small issues like security at toilets often leads to or allows issues like armed robbery to take place.
Inconveniencing high-income patrons brings down the average living standards measure which increases crime risk.Management must deal with little issues comprehensively. Security is not a guard and a camera.
It starts with a clean parking area, well-maintained trees and shrubs outside and friendly staff.
* Paddocks Shopping Centre spokeswoman Ingrid Nel responds:
While we respect all opinions and are happy to receive feedback, this comment is fundamentally unfounded.
The pay toilets are largely to deter drug users, vandalism and petty criminals and have nothing to do the coordinated professional armed robberies that are taking place all over Milnerton and the Cape Town area.
Nor do we perceive there to be a correlation between the two.
Crime is endemic, and we would sooner people be safer in locked toilets than have them be subject to issues in that intimate space where security cannot be.
We ask patrons to be reasonable in responding to Cape Town realities here.
We have repeatedly advertised on social media platforms that all shops have been issued with tags to access the facilities.
Patrons are welcome to collect tags from any of the shop-owners in order for them to use the facilities free of charge, and we continue to invite our shoppers to do this.