SAN ANTONIO — San Antonio will soon require businesses to post special stickers in public or employee bathrooms to help reach victims of domestic violence. Advocates told KENS 5 women and men often use public bathrooms to escape from an abusive partner and the stickers could save lives.
The sticker states, "If you are being abused, you are not alone. Help is here when you're ready." in both English and Spanish. It also includes the National Domestic Violence Hotline (1-800-799-7233) and will feature a QR code to help victims access additional resources.
Thursday, the council unanimously passed an ordinance that would require "places of public accommodation" to post signage with domestic violence resources. The ordinance will technically not go into effect until Oct. 1 of 2024 so the city can begin a 12-month period of outreach and education to engage local businesses.
District 8 Councilman Manny Pelaez said the ordinance had been in the works for a long time. The council presentation showed the idea was originally brought to council in October of 2021. Metro Health conducted a survey in late 2022 with more than 1,400 responses from businesses and members of the public. The city also met with the Restaurant Association and other organizations in 2023.
"This is a really big deal. San Antonio has domestic violence at epidemic levels when one in three women in San Antonio will have a domestic violence story to tell," Pelaez said.
The agenda memorandum for the ordinance said SAPD filed 20,547 domestic violence reports in 2022 and documented 17 related homicides. It said police filed 19,945 reports related to family violence in 2021 which included 22 homicides.
"This is the right place to post in these restrooms. Way too often we hear from victims of domestic violence that the only place they ever found peace was in a public restroom where their abuser couldn't follow them," Pelaez said. "They might see the sign and they might just call."
"It's a matter of public safety and public health that the city recognize its role and responsibility in doing everything that we can to prevent this from continuing and growing in our community," District 9 Councilman John Courage said.
The City of San Antonio will spend $200,316 to print the signs and informational materials and market the program so there is no cost to businesses. The city will not fine businesses that fail to post the signage and will only follow up on complaints from patrons that call 3-1-1.
Pelaez said some businesses were still objecting to the program but it needed to go forward.
"There will be some owners of public bathroom accommodations that object to this. To those owners, I will remind you that one third of all women customers that come though your doors have this problem. One third of your female employees have this problem," Pelaez said. "Your objections have been heard but we are still moving forward with this."
The city is still working on the website that will connect to the QR code on the stickers and staff said the stickers would not be "on the ground" for another three to six months. Mayor Ron Nirenberg said he believed most business owners would follow the rules once they understood what is at stake.
"When they hear about the plight of people in our community and families in particular, children especially, on this issue of domestic violence, hopefully they will be compelled to not have to be complained about though 311," Nirenberg said.
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