A store manager has apologised and offered an $100 voucher to an eight-month-pregnant customer after his refusal to allow her to use a staff toilet led to an uncomfortable 20-minute search for a bathroom.
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Cristina Wright said she was "raging" after the "appalling" refusal to use the staff bathroom at the Good Guys store in Belconnen on Monday, and wanted law changes to force retailers to allow vulnerable people to use their toilets.
"It was quite a shock actually, I really do think it's just unacceptable, at no level should that ever happen again," she said.
"The fact it is left to individuals or companies, instead of it being regulated, for any vulnerable person, an elderly person, someone with incontinence, what, are they meant to do it upon themselves?"
Ms Wright, who was on her own, had gone to the store to buy a freezer but when nature called was directed by a female staff member to go upstairs where she was told someone would show her to the toilet.
The manager then said he could not let customers use them.
She eventually found relief at a service station rest room a short drive away.
Ms Wright said she was happy with the apology, which came on Thursday, three days after she contacted the Good Guys on social media, and after Fairfax Media had approached the company on the issue.
The executive store manager said he had made an error of judgment, as confirmed to him by the Good Guys territory manager, and the company would allow Ms Wright to use the toilet if the situation arose again.
"It was a bad judgment call, granted. Maybe we should be all made to have public toilets," he told Fairfax Media.
The store manager said he had started in the store eight weeks ago. He said customers would have to go through the stock room to get to the staff toilet.
Ms Wright said she had always had excellent service from the Good Guys, and after posting on Facebook had others tell her they had been able to use the Belconnen store's staff toilet before.
ACT Discrimination Commissioner Karen Toohey did not comment on the particular case, but said the objectives oif the Discrimination Act included reminders that to achieve substantive equality, "we sometimes need to make reasonable adjustments to the way we do things, or provide reasonable accommodation for the specific needs".
Fairfax Media does not suggest Ms Wright was refused use of the toilet because she was pregnant.
