Barely after 2 a.m. Thursday, a member of the post-closing time stampede, clad in a dark green and gray coat, staggered to the entrance of Jimmy John’s, 135 Welch Ave.

As he held the establishment’s door open, he said to a small group of friends, “I’m going to go pee and I’ll meet you at this door, right here.”

The young man then proceeded toward the back of Jimmy John’s.

He did not purchase a sandwich.

Campustown businesses thrive on, and are challenged by, the rush of the bar-going masses. Wednesday nights are typically calmer than the Thursday, Friday and Saturday crowds that keep those who work to feed the hundreds of no longer thirsty 20-somethings on their toes.

One of the things that keeps those employees busy is bar-goers who forgot to take care of “business” before closing time.

Several businesses have responded to bar patrons who misuse facilities.

Letter of the law

City of Ames Sanitarian Kevin Anderson said it is not a requirement for a restaurant to open its restroom to the public. It is only required customers and employees have access to facilities at all times.

“In standing food service, you have to provide [bathroom facilities] to employees and your customers,” Anderson said. “But you don’t have to let people in off the street.”

Motorized mobile food units or vending carts are not required to provide restroom facilities for customers, but a restroom-access arrangement must be made with a nearby establishment for employees, Anderson said.

Smiles and Gyros, Inc., a food vending cart on Welch Avenue, has an agreement with Kum & Go, 203 Welch Ave., for use by its employees.

The City of Ames has asked the Iowa Department of Inspections and Appeals for its interpretation of the food code, which regulates restaurant restroom requirements.

Anderson said the department has agreed with the city, and the only time portable toilets are necessary is during a mass gathering. Anderson said portable facilities are therefore available on Welch Avenue during Veishea weekend.

Not in my basement

Home Team Pizza, 2426 Lincoln Way, has a sign posted that no public restrooms are available.

Owner Charles Craiz said customers, by law, are allowed to use the basement bathrooms but they have been closed because of damage caused during the bar rush.

Craiz and two employees said patrons of Lumpys, People’s Bar & Grill and Smiles and Gyros are the most common non-pizza purchasing visitors.

“We had people pissing on everything,” Craiz said. An employee added, “They were using our whole basement as a bathroom, instead of just the toilet.”

Craiz said it was the repeated incidence of that nature that led to the new policy, implemented earlier in the semester.

To prevent similar activity from occurring in its facilities, Kum & Go closes its restrooms to “average drunks” during the bar rush, from 11 p.m. to 4 a.m. Thursday, Friday and Saturday, said night employee Ozzy Rodriguez.

S. Ahmed Merchant, owner of Jimmy John’s, said his employees “don’t check ID” when people want to use the facilities, and his shop has also had problems with vandalism.

Josh Nelson, Jimmy John’s employee and junior in pre-journalism and mass communication, said “a lot of random drunks” come into the shop, and vandalism and theft is sometimes the result.

“We’ve actually had someone come in with a screwdriver and take a sign off the brick wall,” said Nelson, who is also a Daily staff writer.

Merchant said a restroom door was also broken, putting the stall out of commission for a few days until repairs could be made.

Private business in public

Neither the Ames Police Department nor ISU Police keep detailed statistics on the number of public urination citations issued, officials said. But Officer Rick Kinnaman, of the Ames Police Department, said public urination is not a huge problem for law enforcement.

Kinnaman, who typically works the 11 p.m. to 7 a.m. shift, said Thursday morning, “There is usually someone every night.”

Any individual who relieves him or herself in public could be cited with public urination, he said. If the individual is uncooperative, he or she may be taken to jail on a charge of public intoxication.

Ames Police Cmdr. Jim Robinson said the department works with ISU Police to patrol the Campustown area during closing time.

“We commit a lot of our resources to the Campustown area and receive assistance from ISU Police,” Robinson said.

A minimum of two to three Ames Police officers are in the area in addition to ISU Police officers, he said.

“I can’t say [public urination] is an epidemic, and it’s not limited to Campustown,” Robinson said. “We’ll have citations downtown and at large parties in residential neighborhoods.”

Matthew Goodman, owner of Smiles and Gyros, Inc., has been on Welch Avenue at closing time an average of four days a week for the last 12 years.

“I was a kid. I know what it is to have to go to the bathroom outside,” he said. “As far as in sight of me, I’ve probably seen something uncomfortable happen maybe 10 times.

“I’d encourage [bar patrons] to be better planners. It doesn’t happen very often, at least where we see. If it does happen we always say something.”

In the midst of the closing madness at about 2:10 a.m. March 9, an apparently drunk man walked out of a crevice near Kum & Go, fixing his shirt.

The man had come from between the fenced in Kum & Go Dumpster and the building’s exterior, a small space about half a parking space wide and twice as long. It was too dark to see any yellow snow, but it was a dead end and the man looked relieved.