A Manhattan mom is outraged after receiving a $50 fine for letting her 4-year-old son take a bathroom break in a city park. Michiko Sasaki took her son to Battery Playscape in Battery Park City. While there, she says he had a bathroom emergency. Michiko explained that Kobe has anxiety and sensory processing disorder, so sometimes he's not always attuned to bladder signals.
"There was a building with bathrooms … with 'No bathroom' signs," she told TODAY.com. She started looking around for another bathroom, but her son couldn't hold it much longer.
Eventually, she took him to the back of the bathroom building and let him pee on a patch of dirt and weeds. "Suddenly … park officers circled me," she said. "One said, 'Step out, this is not legal' in an aggressive and abrasive tone. Instantly, I got defensive."
She then pointed to the restroom sign to show the officers that it was closed. "What did they expect us to do?" she recalled. "Using the bathroom is a right." One officer pointed in the direction of another bathroom, but Michiko doesn't believe her son would have made it in time.
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"There were no directions for the other bathroom on the sign or a portable toilet," she noted. The experience stuck with her son throughout the day. "He was tugging on me to leave, saying, 'I don't like this.' Every time he used the bathroom that day, he said, 'Remember those mean people?'" Michiko is planning to appeal the summons.
