Pope Visit Plans Overlook an Earthly Need: Toilets

While the Pope’s American tour will no doubt bring millions a little closer to the divine, there is one very real earthly consideration that Los Angeles planners seem to have underestimated:

Toilets.

Unlike arrangements in at least six of the nine cities on Pope John Paul II’s itinerary, the archdiocese of Los Angeles said it has no plans to provide portable toilets for the perhaps 1 million Southern Californians whom church officials are inviting to line the sidewalks along the Pope’s 7.2-mile motorcade route, the longest on his U.S. visit.

Instead, they have advised that each parish chartering buses to the event should make its own arrangements--from renting its own porta-potties or using the toilets aboard buses, to knocking on merchants’ doors, some of which will be closed for the duration, according to reports.

Although most people will be rewarded with only a fleeting glimpse of the pontiff, the papal visit office has been advising people to get to the motorcade route as early as 6 or 6:30 a.m., to avoid traffic congestion.

That could mean a minimum four-hour wait before the Pope is scheduled to board his Popemobile for the parade from Western Avenue and the Santa Monica Freeway to St. Vibiana’s Cathedral downtown. Some city officials have even suggested that spectators arrive as early as 3 a.m.

A spokesman for the archdiocese, the Rev. Joseph Battaglia, contacted by The Times about the potential difficulties, said planners are “aware of the problem and are trying to handle it in a creative way. Most of the parishes coming to the parade will be coming in buses with portable facilities, and the buses will be parked a short distance away.

“We’re also trying to encourage the businesses along the way to open their doors to help alleviate the situation,” Battaglia said. “It’s a creative effort and we’re not oblivious to the problem.”

Carmen Gonzales, who is coordinating motorcade plans for St. Gerard Majella church in Culver City, which intends to share toilet-rental costs with other parishes, said businesses contacted in their area of the motorcade were “not willing to even hear of it (allowing paradegoers to use their bathrooms).” Parish organizers “were hoping we’d get a lot more support from the stores and companies,” she said.

The archdiocese plan contrasts with other mega-events such as the 1984 Summer Olympics, the annual Tournament of Roses parade, which sets up about 700 toilets along its 5.5-mile route, and the Los Angeles Marathon, which set up 86 toilets along 26.2 miles, for runners and spectators alike. County health officials and portable toilet industry representatives recommend at least one toilet for each 200 people at special events, at a cost varying from $40 to $70 each.

“I just can’t believe it,” said Earl Braxton, Detroit-based president of Porta John Corp., which provided toilets for the Pope’s 1984 visit to Canada and which will be trucking 2,400 portable toilets around the country for the current tour. “That city (Los Angeles) is usually pretty astute, pretty hep, more organized than most cities.”

The archdiocese pointed out that they are providing portable toilets for papal masses at the Coliseum and Dodger Stadium to complement the restrooms at those facilities.

Although both city and county officials expressed concern over the lack of coordinated sanitary arrangements, they pointed out that the motorcade is not a government-sponsored event. All inquiries concerning toilet arrangements were referred by city planners to the papal visit office.

One county Department of Health Services spokesman said that while public health codes require “adequate toilet facilities for a temporary event,” there is no hard-and-fast definition for a temporary event that would include the papal motorcade--essentially a one-float parade, with its Popemobile and 20 closed limousines and security vehicles.

Secret Service Advice

Security concerns require portable toilets to be placed at least a block off the motorcade route, said Garry Jenkins, special Secret Service agent in charge of the Los Angeles office. But of the evident shortage of toilets along the Los Angeles route, he said, “I’d advise people not to drink too much water.”

In most other cities on the papal itinerary, chemical toilets are de rigueur. Along Miami’s 3.1-mile route, 60 toilets--three times the number set up for the Orange Bowl parade, according to Police Lt. Bill O’Brien--will be set up and paid for by Miami.

Phoenix’s diocese is paying for the 600-plus portable toilets along its 6.5-mile papal parade route, according to Bud Phillippe, operations manager for J-John Co., one of the three toilet contractors for the event. Church offices in San Antonio, Detroit and New Orleans are paying for toilets along their parade routes, officials said.

In Monterey, church officials are importing 600 toilets from San Jose, at a cost of $32,000, to supplement 250 local toilets for the Pope’s outdoor mass at the Laguna Seca raceway.

A church spokesman in San Francisco, which is not unveiling the Pope’s motorcade route until next week, said only one mile of the 5.5-mile evening rush-hour trip through the downtown area will be at “parade” speed. Police spokesman Dave Ambrose says no chemical toilets will be set up for the event.

In Los Angeles, a salesman for the local United Sanitation Co., who asked not to be named, said he found it “hideous” that no motorcade-wide plan had been set up.

Might Give Raspberry

“If I were out there--and I’m a Roman Catholic--for six or seven hours to watch this guy and went to a (business) restroom and it was locked . . . by the time the Pope goes by, I’d be liable to give him a raspberry.”

Another official of a Southland porta-potty firm, who spoke on condition that he not be named, predicted, “It really is going to be a mess down there.” In a recent conversation with church officials, he said, “I kept telling them I would be more than happy to meet with all the captains of churches. I said you’ve got to have toilets down there. . . . The gas stations on the streets won’t go for people fighting to get in there.”

Buddy Wilson, sales manager for Waste Management, a Sun Valley portable toilet firm, which is providing extra toilets for Dodger Stadium and the Coliseum, said that when he asked about motorcade toilets, he was told by the papal visit office, ‘ “the parishes are on their own.’ ”

Wilson said late Friday that the papal visit office, after receiving calls from The Times about its plans for sanitary arrangements, had called to request estimates on setting up portable toilets on all 65 blocks of the motorcade route.

Checking Costs

Papal visit coordinator Wally Maguire, after speaking to a Times reporter late Friday, asked an office volunteer to investigate how much it would cost to provide portable toilets along the route. But Maguire denied that his office had asked Wilson to propose a 65-block plan.

A coordinator for the 1984 Olympic Torch Relay, Maguire said that no extra portable toilets had been required during that event and no one complained.

Maguire assured The Times that there will be adequate facilities along the route, and said a full toilet inventory may be completed as late as the end of next week, only a few days before the motorcade. “It has always been our intent to make up those gaps (along the route) where adequate facilities may be needed,” Maguire said.

But late next week may be too late. “They’re gonna mess around and wait till the last minute on this thing and find they need about 500 or 600 toilets, and they’re gonna get themselves in an impossible situation,” a toilet company official predicted.

The company official said he had polled many businesses along the route, and many “aren’t even going to open, due to the fact they’re expecting a million and a half people on the motorcade route.”

He said one pastor called him about renting toilets, but he advised him: “I’ll be honest with you--if you’re the only people who are gonna have toilets on the motorcade, you’re better off not ordering them. You’re gonna have a damn riot.”