Single-User Toilet Facilities in Any Business Establishment, Place of Public Accommodation, or Government Agency Must Be Identified as All-Gender

Assembly Bill No. 1732 (Ting, Chapter 818, Statutes of 2016) was signed into law on September 29, 2016, and went into effect on March 1, 2017. It added Section 118600 to Chapter 5 of Part 15 of Division 104 of the Health and Safety Code to require all single-user toilet facilities in any business establishment, place of public accommodation, or government agency to be identified as all-gender toilet facilities.

Owners and operators of establishments containing single-user toilet facilities should immediately change identification symbols to such facilities from gender-specific to all-gender. If a wall-mounted designation sign is provided at such facilities, the sign should comply in all respects with the requirements of Chapter 11B of the California Building Code (Cal. Code Regs., Tit. 24, Part 2) (CBC).

MANDATORY SIGNAGE REQUIREMENTS

Health and Safety Code Section 118600 provides as follows:

1. All single-user toilet facilities in any business establishment, place of public accommodation, or state or local government agency shall be identified as all-gender toilet facilities by signage that complies with Title 24 of the California Code of Regulations, and designated for use by no more than one occupant at a time or for family or assisted use.
2. During any inspection of a business or a place of public accommodation by an inspector, building official, or other local official responsible for code enforcement, the inspector or official may inspect for compliance with this section.
3. For the purposes of this section, “single-user toilet facility” means a toilet facility with no more than one water closet and one urinal with a locking mechanism controlled by the user.
4. This section shall become operative on March 1, 2017.

Signage Requirements

The applicable signage requirements of Title 24 can be found in Chapter 11B of the CBC, which requires that a sanitary facility that is all-gender have a geometric symbol on the door that is an equilateral triangle superimposed onto a circle, as depicted below. The all-gender symbol is the only specific indicator required to be provided by Chapter 11B for a toilet facility that is available for use by all individuals. No pictogram, text, or braille is required on the symbol.

CBC Chapter 11B does not require a wall mounted toilet facility designation sign; however, if word designations are included on the sign, it must comply with the technical requirements for visual characters, raised characters, braille, and must also comply with other accessibility requirements for installation height and location. Furthermore, a pictogram is not required to be provided; however, where a facility owner elects to identify a toilet facility with a pictogram, a text descriptor consisting of visual characters, raised characters, and braille is required to accompany the pictogram.

Door Symbol

The following image represents the door symbol that is required by CBC 11B-216.8 to identify an all-gender single-user toilet facility. The symbol must comply with the requirements of CBC 11B-703.7.2.6.3.