TRENTON — As stewards of the Trenton Free Public Library, librarians and staff are used to handing out reference materials and library cards. Now toilet paper is on the list.



Library staff have taken to passing out toilet paper and hand sanitizer from a sanitation station by the front door to combat a growing wave of theft and vandalism going on inside the Academy Street library's first floor bathrooms.

Library director Kimberly Matthews sounded bewildered this week as she tallied incidents that have taken place in recent months: whole rolls flushed down the toilet, toilet paper and paper towels stolen, soap dispensers ripped off the wall of the ladies room with what could only be a crowbar.

“These are not the things they teach you in library school,” she said.

“It is what it is, though,” she continued. “These are difficulties that we face, and we try to come up with the most respectful and responsible solutions that we can.”

Now soap, paper towels and toilet paper are no longer provided inside the library’s two bathrooms. If patrons need to use the bathroom, they are directed by signs outside the bathrooms to approach the front desk and ask for individual-sized portions of toilet paper that library staff roll out and prepare.

Matthews borrowed the idea from a parks and recreation department in Virginia with similar problems at its public bathrooms. Other solutions such as locking the bathrooms didn’t pan out.

“It seemed like a creative solution we should at least try, to be fiscally responsible and make sure people had toilet paper,” she said.

The approach has been vetted by the city’s health and human services department and falls in line with all public health standards, she said.

The city’s latest toilet paper saga comes one year after City Hall made international headlines for a toilet paper shortage that threatened to leave city buildings entirely without paper. In the midst of a fight with Mayor Tony Mack over hot drink cups, city council refused to approve a paper products contract for the city, leaving the city’s supply of toilet paper, paper towels and toilet covers to dwindle to critical levels. The situation was resolved with an emergency purchase of paper goods, but not before council members complained that the city had become a laughingstock.

At the library, Matthews said it’s a reality that facilities in cities or poorer environments sometime experience problems with theft or improper use of bathrooms.

“Every public library in an urban or metropolitan environment has similar difficulties,” she said. “People will bathe in bathrooms, use them for all varieties of things they’re not meant to be for. People need essential hygiene products but we can’t supply them for them.”

Before the new policy, the library was blowing through its stock of paper products and spending thousands more than it budgeted on supplies, she said. The library was typically going through 12 to 15 rolls of toilet paper per day and spent $4,000 in three months on toilet paper — an amount that typically buys nine months worth of tissue, she said.

“I suspect it’s just a handful of folks causing problems, but we can’t keep throwing good money after bad,” Matthews said.

Contact Erin Duffy at (609) 989-5723 or eduffy@njtimes.com

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