For many coming up from the Lower Mainland, Britannia Beach offers the first real pit stop on the Sea to Sky Highway.
That often means bathroom breaks, but the only real option at present in the community is the Britannia Mine Museum.
The museum attracts many visitors, but some are heading straight toward the washroom instead of to the front entrance.
“There are people that are not intending to visit the museum,” said Area D Director Tony Rainbow. “They want to use the washroom.”
The museum has not denied access to the washrooms, but it has tried tactics such as messages that the facilities are for visitors as well as closing them during slow times, though this resulted in staff receiving complaints from the public.
The extra bathroom use comes with a price, so the museum has asked the Squamish-Lillooet Regional District for some help because the washroom visitors are adding to the overhead.
“What they’re finding is it’s increasing their costs,” Rainbow said. “They’re concerned about that.”
There had been an accessible washroom at an art gallery, but this is no longer available, meaning visitors now stop at the museum for the washrooms.
In December, curator Diane Mitchell contacted Rainbow to ask the regional district for some funds to help with maintenance costs. She suggested at least a third of the washroom users are not visitors or even potential museum visitors. These include contractors, delivery drivers or families.
“We’ve even seen the odd tour bus stop by where the occupants on the bus pour out, use the washrooms, then load back up and take off,” she wrote in her email to the Area D director. “We’re not against the concept of making the washrooms available to non-museum visitors. But there is a financial/staff cost to maintaining them.”
Mitchell also said the outside washrooms are the messiest ones to maintain and they have also had to deal with damage and graffiti.
Rainbow suggests the situation presents a dilemma for the museum.
“On the one hand, you think, well, we want to encourage tourism,” he said. “If we start helping providing a washroom there, then where does it end?”
Rainbow said the mood of the board is to take care of the situation for now.
In the future, there should be washrooms available, with the MacDonald Development Corporation's commercial development plans slated for the centre of Britannia Beach. Rainbow said the developers’ plans are to sell the townhouses they are building but retain the commercial sites.
“They will have public washrooms that are staffed,” he said.
The project has been in the works for years, but Rainbow thinks the time for the development to begin is coming.
For now, the museum still faces the situation of many people using its washroom facilities without coming to visit the actual museum, while the regional district can only help to a degree.
“I can’t help them in terms of ongoing operating expenses,” Rainbow said.
However, he said he will be talking with the museum to find out how the SLRD board can assist with some of the present costs.
(This story has been edited since it was first posted.)
