TOSSED NEEDLES A HAZARD IN PUBLIC RESTROOMS

Discarded needles in public washrooms are a dangerous problem, and
local businesses are doing something about it.

Last month, the Tim Hortons at Bank and Cooper streets put biohazard
disposal bins in their bathrooms after employees saw needles in the
garbage and feared they would prick someone.

But this is not an isolated incident.

Sarah MacNeil, a Clarence Street Second Cup employee, said she
constantly finds drug paraphernalia in the bathrooms.

"We have this problem daily," she said.

MacNeil described finding used needle tips, syringes and marijuana.
She has also found dirty drug spoons hidden in fluorescent ceiling
lights and a bag of drugs in a ceiling vent.

The store uses a customers-only policy for their washrooms, but
MacNeil said this doesn't solve the problem. Turning someone away
because they look suspicious isn't easy, she said.

"It's really uncomfortable, especially at night," she said. "Having to
turn someone down and then seeing them on the street at 1 a.m. after
you close is a little scary."

MacNeil said the coffee shop is considering installing ultraviolet
light bulbs.

Under the bluish lights, visibility is maintained but people can't see
their veins and therefore can't inject drugs into them. MacNeil said
she's heard of Vancouver businesses successfully using this strategy.

The disposal bin in Tim Hortons is a less expensive, effective way to
solve the problem, said Rachel Douglas, director of public affairs at
the Tim Hortons head office in Toronto.

"We are pleased to no longer have any hazardous materials lying around
our store washrooms," she said. The number of Tim Hortons locations
using bins isn't available, Douglas said, because they are implemented
on a case-by-case basis.

The bright yellow, rectangular containers have a small opening in the
top for toxic waste. The Bank and Cooper location got their containers
from Shoppers Drug Mart.

Customers can request a bin free of charge and then return it so the
waste is properly disposed of, said Bryce Wong, a pharmacist at a
Centretown Shoppers Drug Mart.

Diabetics often ask for bins to throw out their needles safely, Wong
said.

Ottawa Public Health uses safety disposal bins too, as part of the
Black Box Project. About twenty-five big, black containers are
scattered throughout the city for drug users to leave needles in.
Johnson's Environmental Products, an Ottawa company, supplies the bins.

Drug users are receptive to throwing their needles away safely, said
Russ Salo, the Johnson's sales manager who deals with Ottawa Public
Health.

"If there's a disposal unit, they'll use it," he said. "Because if
they do that, they are less likely to be hassled by the
authorities."

The black bins cost $1,695 each, but smaller bins suited for indoors
are $300 each.

The problem of dirty needles has increased, said Jack McCarthy, the
executive director of Somerset West Community Health Centre in Centretown.

He said he thinks it has to do with city council's decision to stop
giving money to the safe inhalation program, which gives clean pipes
to users who smoke crack cocaine.

McCarthy said that because fewer people are getting pipes to inhale
drugs safely, many of them are injecting instead. When city council
stopped contributing in July 2007, they left only smaller contributors
supplying the pipes.

Any method to reduce needles left in washrooms is a good idea,
McCarthy said. Ottawa has higher rates of Hepatitis C and HIV than
many other cities, including Toronto, and disposal bins could help
change that, he said.

"What's the problem here? That people are being put in harm's way
because of dirty needles," McCarthy said.

"People who are going to be injecting anyway need a safer way to
dispose of their needles and minimize the harm to the public."