Cafe toilets/ lack of toilets, St Stephen's Green Shopping Centre -- legal?

kceire

kceire wrote: »

Yes, from my memory. I was typing from the sofa on my phone so I wasn't prepared to open the CIS Library to get the exact British Standard reference. I believe my memory was correct anyhow.

I guess you work in the area. I was somewhere between joking and bewildered that someone would know that code by heart, but it must be part of your profession; thanks for the info!

bingbong500

kceire wrote: »

Its a Building Regulation issue, not a Council requirement.
Is your Café independently situated, ie. out on its own? If so you must provide Sanitary Facilities in accordance with Technical Guidance Document Part G and TGD Part M.

If you were to locate your Café into an existing Shopping Centre, then you wouldn't have to provide these as you can demonstrate that the SC toilets are there t serve your customers

Who is responsible for enforcing the building regulations? Do you think maybe its the relevant council?
50 points if you finally got there!

Gumbo

bingbong500 wrote: »

Who is responsible for enforcing the building regulations? Do you think maybe its the relevant council?
50 points if you finally got there!

The Building Control Authority enforce the regulations as set out by the Department of Environment. Can I have my 50 points now please.

They are not Council Regulations as originally posted by another poster, if they were they would be bye laws

And furthermore, you cannot enforce building regulations onto a building built before the building regulations came into force

kceire

kceire wrote: »

And furthermore, you cannot enforce building regulations onto a building built before the building regulations came into force

What if the purposes of the building, or outlets within the building, have changed?

Surely that matters. Dunnes, for example, didn't always have that amount of seating for so many people (more than 60)

Gumbo

A Tyrant Named Miltiades! wrote: »

What if the purposes of the building, or outlets within the building, have changed?

Surely that matters. Dunnes, for example, didn't always have that amount of seating for so many people (more than 60)

If it goes through a material alteration, or a change of use you can enforce certain regulations on them. But they are still working within the confines of an existing building, so some requirements from the current Regs may not be able to be achieved.

riclad

Every shopping centre has a mcdonalds,s or burger king which has a toilet,
now mcdonalds has a code on every reciept.
except maybe the grafron st branch.
You put the code in to use the toilet ,every toilet had a door lock, with a
code input unit .
i presume its to stop junkies using the toilets .
i,m did not think a large restaurant can open without having a toilet
for public use.
Theres public toilets near the mcdonalds in the ilac centre ,
no receipt needed .theres always staff there ,at least one person all the time .
its run by the shopping centre staff .
I just read an article today , the title No shop,s , too many cafes, restaurants.
It says in dublin city centre many shops are closing ,dublin 2, etc
due to online shopping , many streets are just full of
cafes,restaurants .It said each restaurant has to get planning
permits from dublin city council before they can open .
I, would think a new restaurant would need to have toilets
to get permission to open .
When i say restaurant i mean a place that serves, dinners, lunch, breakfast
etc not just a place that sells tea or coffee .
People can buy everything online or go to a large shopping centre
with free parking .
The rent the landlords get from a cafe is smaller than the rent from
a bookshop or phone shop that was there in 2018 .

JupiterKid

On an aside, didn’t the owners of the Stephens Green Centre plan to give the place a complete refurbishment, which from a mock up pic I saw in the papers a couple of years ago involved getting rid of the white steel and glass look?

JupiterKid

JupiterKid wrote: »

On an aside, didn’t the owners of the Stephens Green Centre plan to give the place a complete refurbishment, which from a mock up pic I saw in the papers a couple of years ago involved getting rid of the white steel and glass look?

Im so surprised this hasn't happened already. The centre is perfectly poised to be a counterbalance to BTs at the other end of Grafton Street, accommodating good quality restaurants, cafés and boutiques, etc.

As things stand, the Centre is dingy and dilapidated. It looks like an oversized conservatory from the 1980s. It nerds a complete overhaul, and to be opened up to the park in front of it and views of the city. It could be a gold mine for its owners, whom I don't imagine are making a great deal of money from some dubious art exhibitions, key cutting, a Flying Tiger, "Wrestlemania", and several pretty grim cafés.

Apparently Jones Lang and Lasalle are the owners of the Centre, and they're not short of cash.

markpb

A Tyrant Named Miltiades! wrote: »

Apparently Jones Lang and Lasalle are the owners of the Centre, and they're not short of cash.

JLL manage it, they don't own it. Irish Life owned 73% of it in 2015 but were planning to sell. I'm not sure what happened after.

markpb

markpb wrote: »

JLL manage it, they don't own it. Irish Life owned 73% of it in 2015 but were planning to sell. I'm not sure what happened after.

You're quite right. I made the fatal mistake of believing Wikipedia!

I see an IT article announcing the sale, but can't see whether there was any external buyer, or whether the minority owner took over the entire building. I suspect no sale went ahead.

Irish Life is another cash/liquidity -rich organisation, so again it's difficult to understand the unwillingness to improve the income yield from the building, by closing it for say two years and completely reforming it.

Muahahaha

JupiterKid wrote: »

On an aside, didn’t the owners of the Stephens Green Centre plan to give the place a complete refurbishment, which from a mock up pic I saw in the papers a couple of years ago involved getting rid of the white steel and glass look?

Yeah there was plans afoot a back in 2015 for an overhaul, havent heard anything since. Either way the SSG centre has some amount of dead space from ground level up to the roof, they could fit a in good few more shops if they filled this in which I presume is the plan.
https://www.irishtimes.com/business/commercial-property/st-stephen-s-green-centre-revamp-to-begin-soon-1.2455012

On the subject of toilets- does anyone come across business that seem to have their toilets out of order a lot of the time? One Im thinking of is Ricks burgers on Dame St, I dont go in often anymore but when I did it always seemed 50/50 whether or not the toilets were open. Id have thought it is breaking some law/regulation to not have hand washing facilities in a place that is serving food but to me it seems like they get away with it.

markpb

Muahahaha wrote: »

Yeah there was plans afoot a back in 2015 for an overhaul, havent heard anything since. Either way the SSG centre has some amount of dead space from ground level up to the roof, they could fit a in good few more shops if they filled this in which I presume is the plan.

I read somewhere else that the problem with SSG is that the units are quite small, even if they combine several units. The companies showing interest in moving into Ireland (and who could pay the most rent) have no interest in small units.

Gumbo

riclad wrote: »

Every shopping centre has a mcdonalds,s or burger king which has a toilet,
now mcdonalds has a code on every reciept.
except maybe the grafron st branch.
You put the code in to use the toilet ,every toilet had a door lock, with a
code input unit .
i presume its to stop junkies using the toilets .
i,m did not think a large restaurant can open without having a toilet
for public use.
Theres public toilets near the mcdonalds in the ilac centre ,
no receipt needed .theres always staff there ,at least one person all the time .
its run by the shopping centre staff .
I just read an article today , the title No shop,s , too many cafes, restaurants.
It says in dublin city centre many shops are closing ,dublin 2, etc
due to online shopping , many streets are just full of
cafes,restaurants .It said each restaurant has to get planning
permits from dublin city council before they can open .
I, would think a new restaurant would need to have toilets
to get permission to open .
When i say restaurant i mean a place that serves, dinners, lunch, breakfast
etc not just a place that sells tea or coffee .
People can buy everything online or go to a large shopping centre
with free parking .
The rent the landlords get from a cafe is smaller than the rent from
a bookshop or phone shop that was there in 2018 .

Toilets are required under the regulations for users of that establishment. They are not required for the general public.

Kittykat67

radiotrickster wrote: »

There's an app called crAPP that gives you the codes for shops toilets around the city, if you're ever stuck.

That sounds good , I must take a look

Kittykat67

A Tyrant Named Miltiades! wrote: »

Im so surprised this hasn't happened already. The centre is perfectly poised to be a counterbalance to BTs at the other end of Grafton Street, accommodating good quality restaurants, cafés and boutiques, etc.

As things stand, the Centre is dingy and dilapidated. It looks like an oversized conservatory from the 1980s. It nerds a complete overhaul, and to be opened up to the park in front of it and views of the city. It could be a gold mine for its owners, whom I don't imagine are making a great deal of money from some dubious art exhibitions, key cutting, a Flying Tiger, "Wrestlemania", and several pretty grim cafés.

Apparently Jones Lang and Lasalle are the owners of the Centre, and they're not short of cash.

It definitely needs updating

JupiterKid

markpb wrote: »

I read somewhere else that the problem with SSG is that the units are quite small, even if they combine several units. The companies showing interest in moving into Ireland (and who could pay the most rent) have no interest in small units.

Yes, this is true. The SSG Centre opened back in October 1988 - over 30 years ago - and is now very dated and tired. Many of the units are too small for modern retailers and there was always a long-standing problem of the upper floors having very little footfall and thus little rental income for the owners.

It will require a complete modernisation and partial rebuild. There may be legal issues holding up redevelopment plans.

Age does not necessarily mean obsolescence. The Powerscourt Townhouse Centre opened in 1981 - the same year the Ilac opened - and is still a great upper end retail space. It was way ahead of its time and has aged very well.

Muahahaha

Whenever they do renovate SSG SC I wonder where that huge clock might end up. If they're not using it we could put it in the Liffey for Time in the Slime part II

Ush1

As long as Asha stays open I don't mind, was in there recently and the nostalgia that hit me was mental.

Slipknot t-shirts and hash leaf lighters to beat the band back in the day!

Thelonious Monk

I'm in there nearly every day. Apart from Boots and Dunnes none of the other shops do too well from what I can see. I like it though, I have memories of being there as a kid just after it opened.
There's some really odd businesses in there. Like who goes to that café on the 3rd floor? Who thought it was a good idea to open that? Bizarre.

Corruptedmorals

It definitely needs a huge overhaul but I hope they can keep or incorporate the glass! It's so unique as a view looking down. The art gallery and a few of the shops are a great asset compared to how same-y other shopping centres are but unfortunately there are so many dead units in it which are as mentioned far too small to be useful in attracting tenants. They need to change the layout completely. The clothes shops are grim.

The cafe on the top floor, used to go the odd time when I worked in SSG and it used to get the tourists a little bit but it's definitely very quiet. And so isolated from the food court and the ground floor cafe.

riclad

All shopping centres should have one or 2 public toilets ,
the one in the ilac always has one or 2 staff there all the time,
so i have never seen any junkies hanging around,there
and of course theres security staff in the centre anyway.
i would not go for lunch or breakfast in a cafe that did not have a toilet.
i see small subways in spar shops do not have toilets .
i do not expect the general public to have acess to all toilets ,in all cafes,

i mean cafes that sell breakfast ,lunch, etc should have toilets for customers of that cafe/ restaurant .
i see signs on the certain cafe,s door,
toilets are for customer use only .