What’s the price tag for a porcelain throne? In Long Beach, it was about $3.11 per flush.
Since April, the city has been testing a handful of rented high-tech public toilets. They’re free to use, but they require a cell phone for entry and automatically open the door after someone’s been inside for 10 minutes. Now, they’re here to stay — most of them at least.
The restroom at Shoreline Marina will be removed soon, while the locations at Harvey Milk Promenade Park, Belmont Pier and DeForest Park will remain in place through at least October 2026, according to the city.
The bathrooms are the brainchild of Throne Labs, which operates restrooms across five states, including the dozens it provides to the Los Angeles Metro Transportation Authority.
After a four-month pilot program in Long Beach concluded last month, city staff decided to extend its contract with Throne at the three most popular test locations “based on the performance indicators from the pilot and available budget,” Technology Partnerships Officer Ryan Kurtzman wrote in an email.
Kurtzman did not provide an exact cost for extending the contract but said it will range between $216,000 and $324,000 “based on the level of cleaning service and preventative maintenance provided.” Further extensions could come to the City Council for consideration.
Each 7-by-8-foot bathroom has 21 sensors that gather various data, including how often and how long the unit is used.
From April 15 through Aug. 15, the four Long Beach restrooms were used more than 31,000 times, according to Throne Labs. Based on the $99,200 funding for the pilot, that was $3.11 per flush.
Belmont Pier’s unit received the most use, with an average of 119 uses per day. It was the second busiest Throne bathroom in the nation, said the company’s co-founder, Jessica Heinzelman. Only the Throne in Los Angeles’ Little Tokyo was used more frequently.
District 3 City Council Member Kristina Duggan said she wasn’t surprised to hear how in-demand the Belmont Pier unit was.
The two permanent bathrooms located halfway down the pier are “difficult to maintain” because they are constantly getting clogged, Duggan said.
“I think the Throne bathrooms offer such a great option for people coming down to the pier,” Duggan said. “It’s clean, it’s ADA accessible, it’s easy.”
Anyone trying to get into a Throne must use a cell phone to scan a QR code or send a text message to open the doors. Once the user exits, they are given a digital survey to rate the bathroom on cleanliness and overall satisfaction.
Every fifth user is asked about smell, Heinzelman said.
During the pilot, 91% of users rated the bathrooms as “good” or “great,” and 82% of users said they felt safer compared to using a traditional restroom, according to Kurtzman.
Each Long Beach unit was cleaned once every 12 uses, on average, Heinzelman said.
The units contain a flushing toilet, urinal, sink with running water, mirror, baby-changing station and a menstrual pad dispenser.
Users have a 10-minute limit for each use, after which a voice warns the user that the automatic door will slide open.
That time limit deters loitering and provides access to emergency crews if someone has a medical emergency inside the bathroom, Heinzelman said.
Multiple businesses near the Throne unit at the Harvey Milk Promenade Park told a Throne representative that being able to point non-customers somewhere else for a public restroom was “a huge benefit,” Heinzelman said.
The restrooms are open daily from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m., according to the city.
For DeForest Park in North Long Beach, the Throne bathroom could not have come at a better time.
The park has been without a permanent restroom since June last year, when a fire torched the interior of the public bathroom near DeForest Avenue and 61st Street.
Two portable toilets were set up as a temporary solution while the city made plans to demolish the red-tagged structure and build a new restroom. Until recently, the portable toilets were not emptied and cleaned every day, said nearby resident Benjamin Pohlmeier.
With the Throne unit now added, people finding other places to go in the park “has been a lot less of an issue, especially when there is a No. 2 emergency,” Pohlmeier said.
According to Heinzelman, the DeForest Park unit had the most repeat users out of the four pilot locations, likely because of its proximity to the pickleball courts.