Lytham tea room staff abused over lavatory closure

Before lockdown, the cafe was happy to open its doors to people who did not want to buy anything but wanted to use the toilets on the premises.

But now, due to social distancing rules, the cafe has had to reduce the number of people coming in at one time, meaning its toilets are now for customers only.

Owner Carla Wood, who moved her Quirky Tea Rooms business to Park View from St Annes ahead of the easing of lockdown, said: “The toilets are inside the building. They’ve never been advertised as public toilets. They are part of the cafe, and now because of Covid-19 we have to carefully manage the number of people in at any one time the toilets have been shut to anyone but customers.

“We have received a backlash. People have been so abusive to staff of whatever age. No matter how we try to defend ourselves it doesn’t seem to matter.

“We have had people queuing to use the toilets and when they get to the front and are told that the toilets aren’t open they hurl abuse, embarrassing the staff and making them feel very uncomfortable.

“People wouldn’t walk into any other cafe in Lytham and demand to use the toilets so they shouldn’t do it to us.

“We couldn’t manage to take the names and contact details of every visitor to the park and let them walk in and out of the cafe just to use the toilets. We couldn’t physically deal with the amount of people coming into the building.”

She said the verbal abuse of staff had been a daily occurrence since she opened the cafe on July 4.

“It definitely isn’t the situation we wanted to be in. It’s hard enough without people having a go at staff,” she said.

Julie Norman, park ranger at Park View, said: “Most people are great but there’s a few not willing to follow social distancing.

“We have measures in place to adhere to Government guidelines. We are limited to how many people we can have in a building and there’s a one-way system in place.

“It’s nice to see people back in the park again. I think the restrictions are challenging for everyone. We just request that people have the time and patience for social distancing and make sure our staff and volunteers are treated well.”

While strict social distancing rules are in place, Park View visitors have been asked to make use of the nearest 20p public toilets at East Beach near the Windmill on Lytham Green, Pleasant Street car park off North Clifton Street, and West Beach at Lowther Gardens.