In a CBS Evening News report on Monday that followed a day in the life of a Boston-area drug user, viewers watched as 30-year-old addict Jason Amaral searched for an available bathroom downtown to get high.

Amaral decided to use a bathroom open to all Bostonians—the one in City Hall. He proceeded to bring several pills of Klonopin into a basement bathroom, crush them against a toilet, and then snort the powder through rolled up cash.

The footage of that drug use was “inappropriate and disturbing,” Mayor Marty Walsh spokeswoman Bonnie McGilpin said in a statement on Tuesday. Still, McGilpin said City Hall—and its bathrooms—would remain open to the public.


“Access to City Hall and the safety of all occupants is paramount,” she said. “While this footage is inappropriate and troubling, Boston City Hall is the people’s building and it will continue to be open to the public to serve all of our residents.”

The CBS Evening News video of Amaral served to highlight the everyday existence of those in the grips of drug addiction, which has touched people across New England.

In 2015, 126 people in Boston died from opioid-related overdoses, double the total from 2012, according to data from the Massachusetts Department of Public Health.

One consequence of the sprawling drug epidemic has been limited access to public bathrooms. In Cambridge, for example, Christ Church Cambridge decided to close its bathroom to the public after a series of heroin overdoses there.

At City Hall, both uniformed and non-uniformed officers from Boston Police and Municipal Protective Services patrol the building regularly, McGilpin said.

McGilpin highlighted several programs to treat opioid addiction initiated by Walsh. The mayor, who has struggled with alcohol addiction, created the Office of Recovery Services when he was elected to try to deal with addiction services in Boston. In addition, Walsh directed all first responders in Boston to carry Narcan, a drug that reverses overdoses.


The second part of the segment on Amaral is scheduled to run on Tuesday night.