Portable toilet removed from homeless camp

Tuesday, April 9, 2002 | 9:51 a.m.

A portable toilet was removed from a homeless camp in downtown Las Vegas on Saturday morning after the city said it was obstructing a public right of way, homeless advocates said.

The potty was brought to the camp on A Street about 10 days ago as part of an ongoing effort to avoid the sort of health hazard that drove the city to break up a larger camp nearby on March 25.

"I would have loved to have left it out there, but the city delivered a 24-hour notice to me on Friday, so we had to remove it," said Sherrill Figuera, who works for the company that rented the portable toilet to homeless advocates.

The notice said the portable toilet "had been found to be a dangerous condition," as defined in the Las Vegas Municipal Code.

The toilet was located against a fence beside the homeless camp's tents on a strip of land that sees little to no pedestrian traffic.

The only bathroom available to the homeless in the area on a nearly full-time basis is at Catholic Charities, located almost a mile away. The shelter's two toilets are available 22 hours daily, closing from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m. for cleaning.

"You'd think the city would have wanted to leave the Porta-Potti there to avoid a public health problem, but there was nothing we could do about the situation," Figuera said.