Wouldn't this be illegal?

You can still achieve clean hands in very cold water. I used to do it all the time while in the army out in the field with zero utilities. Was it pleasant? No.

It’s bad enough that the state really feels that “a law” is necessary to get people to do something that most of us learned in kindergarten, but… I’ll let that pass for now.

If you think that the law would be improved by legislation that also required employers to provide hot water for hand-washing (and I agree with you absolutely that it is; and I learned this some time after kindergarten because I must have been a slow learner), then consider what the law would also have to address:

—How hot the water should be;
—How long you should have to wash;
—How you should also be sure to clean out under your fingernails;
—The kinds of soaps that would be permitted and the kinds that would be forbidden;
—And so on, and certainly not excluding…
—How the fucking law is to be enforced and how expensive it will be to monitor, check and prosecute offenders.

Can’t we just leave ridiculous-enough alone?

By all means lobby your employer to provide hot water for you to perform your legally mandated ablutions, but please leave the state out of it.

That’s not in every business bathroom, just in businesses that handle food or anything else that goes in the mouth. I would think that would include a pharmacy.

The building, and therefore the business, may have been grandfathered in. Many laws grant exemptions to businesses that predate some event.

If I were you, I’d call the local health department and ask them. You can do so anonymously.

@RandomGirl I’ll try to look into your building codes tomorrow. Let me see what I find.

And he could get a small hot water heater that he could mount under the sink for a less than $200.

@CWOTUS: I do agree with you there. But that’s not the question – the question is about Minnesota building codes and requirements for businesses. I’m just curious.

Could you be happy with alcohol based hand sanitizer?

@bkcunningham: I really would like to stay away from alcohol-based hand sanitizer because of its drying properties and the way it kills nearly 100% of bacteria on the skin’s surface, including the necessary good bacteria.

Many businesses only have cold water to avoid a lawsuit on the off chance someone burns their hands on the hot water. I have no idea about the specific laws in Minnesota though.

No, it’s not against the law.

And those signs are in every state, not just Minnesota.

It does violate health codes in most locations. As @Judi said above, this is a relatively simple and cheap repair.

I cannot find the exact code violation here. However, I’m certain it is a violation. In your state, certain workers must wash hands even before sanitizing. .

The main reason this is a violation is that people are less likely to wash as frequently without warm water. Sanitizer does not kill all viruses.

@JLeslie That is true in some business bathrooms for the public. This is for an employee bathroom.

Perhaps you could tell your employer that you’re going to carry a hip flask of, say 25% methanol, to sanitize your hands. (The concentration may be high or low, and could be worked out or looked up; I’m just throwing out a number that’s not 100% alcohol. Also be sure to note that methanol is poisonous to consume internally.)

So you could show him the flask, which you keep in your pocket so that it stays warm from your body heat, and will allow you to sanitize your hands “properly”, but not absolutely (in the way you don’t want), and that will satisfy the law and your desire for normal human comfort.

Say that and show the flask in front of customers and you might have hot water in the bathroom tomorrow afternoon. And if you’re concerned that “I could be fired”, well, whatever for, anyway? Where’s the harm?

PS: You don’t actually have to have alcohol in the flask, which may be a violation of your employer’s guidelines or some other state law, more than likely. The implication that you do have alcohol and you’re not afraid to use it—but especially customers becoming aware of your employer’s lack of proper plumbing to satisfy routine hygiene—could go a long way to fix the problem. We can all do better than “there must be a law” if we just get creative, imaginative and a little bit bold. You may not even need to break any laws to do it.

In any case, a hip flask filled with clean, fresh water, even if you don’t publicize the fact, may be just the warmth that you need to rinse your hands after washing in cold water.

@CWOTUS, that might be a little extreme to make a point. IMHO you should just state the fact out loud to everyone within earshot that the water is so cold you can ice fish in the sink and you weren’t able to properly wash your hands.

I could probably agree with you, @bkcunningham, and both ways are somewhat (apparently necessarily) dramatic, but I think my way is more fun. And I could put my hands on that hip flask soon enough, too.

Actually, I think @Judi‘s solution makes the most sense, though.

@livelaughlove21: I assumed it was state-by-state because WI doesn’t have the signs.

@RandomGirl, what is your main issue? Is it because cold water is uncomfortable or is it because you don’t think that cold water cleans as well as warm water? Or is it something entirely different?

I would think it would be illegal.

@bkcunningham I think the the issue may be that the absence of hot warm water would discourage people who are already not inclined to wash their hands.

@bkcunningham: Just that the ice-cold water is uncomfortable, and every time I wash my hands at work, I wonder how well it’s cleaning (and if it’s not cleaning well, why should I do it, y’know?) and whether there are laws on the books about it. I do still wash my hands, by the way, and I don’t think it’s that big of a deal. The store has been functioning this way for 30 years or so, and much of the town is loyal to him (the pharmacist) and happy with the service. No one’s ever complained about any of our cleansing practices (that I know of). So I see no point in saying anything about it.

@CWOTUS A law saying that employees must be provided with hot water to wash their hands does not need to address how long one should have to wash, where one should have to wash, or really anything to do with the specific act of washing at all. It would not be a hand washing law, after all, but a law about employer responsibilities. So while there would have to be some part defining what counts as hot water for the purposes of the law, and while there would have to be some sort of enforcement mechanism proposed (probably just allowing employees to take action against their employers for failing to comply, which wouldn’t require any new agents or agencies beyond the ordinary civil court system), most of your putative consequences are illusory. I get that you’re against the law, but that doesn’t mean you get to make things up.

The point in saying something about it is because the water if cold and it hurts your hands to use it and it would be easier and more convenient to wash in warm water. Perhaps the owners of your business are like me and erroneously think the cost would outweigh the means. How stupid are we at times? Sometimes it takes someone willing to come to the plate to point out the obvious to us. It depends on the manner, attitude and tone of the presentation though as to how it is accepted. Do you think you could come up with a good presentation for @Judi‘s idea?

Handy Wipes, or some such, could be a solution.
My grandmother used to say, “You have to eat a peck of dirt before you die, so don’t worry about it.”

@SpatzieLover Interesting again. :)

Having seen how legislatures like to pass laws, @SavoirFaire, and having seen the executive agencies who write regulations “with the force of law” when the legislature has to “do something” but doesn’t really want to do anything, and having worked with the petty bureaucrats who interpret more or less plain English into “no, it means do what I say, so you better” ... what I’ve postulated isn’t so far from what would become “the law of the land”.

I still say that adults who are willing to speak up for themselves or get creative and make things happen on their own are a whole lot more interesting—and effective—than lobbyists, legislatures, regulators, bureaucrats and enforcers.

haha Sarah. and no there wouldn’t have to be hot water.

Just a note. I’m in California so I’m not familiar with Minn. but I’d be very surprised if it was much different. The health department already has regulations defining everything @CWOTUS alluded to. How long you must scrub your hands, under the fingernails, above the wrists, etc. Also what kind of sanitizing soap and what kind of towels that can be used. Remember that regulators write lots of regulations. That’s what they do and it’s the only thing they do. If they’re not writing regulations, they don’t have a job.

Hand sanitizers are not a subsitute for washing your hands. I don’t really know if there is any requirement to have hot water at the hand washing sink. I already have that, so it hasn’t come up in any of the health inspections. But the hot water heater is regulated as to how hot it has to be (they don’t miss a trick). And I would bet there is already a requirement for hot water just to wash the normal utensils for handling the drugs. So it would require new piping to the hand sink.

Just a personal note, I had to install a second hand washing sink outside of the employee only bathroom just in case someone needed to wash their hands while the bathroom was occupied. Now that seemed stupid to me but apparently not to the health department.

@Jaxk I actually think employees in restaurants should have to wash there hand before touching anything in the kitchen, rather than washing their hands in the bathroom, especially if there is only one bathroom for employees and customers. Well, rather than is not really what I want to stay, because I hope everyone washes their hands after using the bathroom, but it isn’t enough if there is a real problem. Customers don’t always wash their hands, and so when the employee turns of the faucet or touches the bathroom door to leave, they risk contamination.

@JLeslie

No problem with your point but6 I have neither a kitchen nor a public bathroom. Mine is a convenience store.

@Jaxk I often wonder if cashiers and shelf stockers in grocery stores are instructed as strictly as people who work behind the deli or fish counter on not touching their nose, washing their hands, and things like that.

I had a fantasy of owning a convenience store at one point.

@CWOTUS There is an important difference between “they would do this” and “they would have to do this.” The former suggests a problem with a particular set of legislators, whereas the latter suggests a problem with legislation in general. And since you appeal to the “would have to do this” formulation in your original post and to the “would do this” formulation in your response to my objection, your defense rests on a fallacy of equivocation. Thus I stand by my claim that you have overstated your position.

@JLeslie

It’s definitely not the same. A cashier by design, will be handling money and merchandise but not raw food.

I had a fantasy that I sold my convenience store

@Jaxk The money is a great point, germs already present. Raw meat usually gets cooked, and probably if the person packing it was sick, the germs get killed in the cooking process. Cross contamination of raw meat to other foods is a separate issue. An important issue, but separate issue.

LOL

@RandomGirl I looked into your state building code, all 350 pages of it. I didn’t find anything about having hot water available. It covers everything else but I didn’t find that.

Even if there is no law I think you can ask your employer to improve the situation.

@JLeslie Yes, that’s just common courtesy and good sense. Hot water shouldn’t be a luxury.

@Adirondackwannabe: Wow, you must have a lot of time on your hands!

@RandomGirl Nah, just blowing off for a few days. My pressure job ends 4/30 for a bit, so I get to be a screwup for a bit. I thought NYS’s code was bad. Your’s is insane.

@Adirondackwannabe, would the building code be important if the building was, like @RandomGirl said, build in the 1950s and been in operation for 30 years? My guess would be, and correct me if I’m wrong, even if the building is out of code, it has been grandfathered in somewhere along the way. You know it most likely has asbestos floors or pipes and lead paint and such. That may be why they don’t want to mess with the plumbing. The out of code thinks like that may be fine until you touch or disturb them, then you must pay the piper.

@bkcunningham That’s exactly what the code said. If you make any “alterations” you have to bring the structure up to code.

So in light of that, the hot water heater would definitely cost more than $200.

Yes, I’m guessing it would be a huge cost. Maybe use a hot plate or something to warm the water?

You’re pretty much right, @SavoirFaire; I did overstate the case for legislation / regulation with “have to include”. The regulations “would include” some of the points I mentioned (plus a number of regulations I can’t even imagine yet), but it wouldn’t “have to”.

I thought about defending my wording with “by the nature of legislatures and regulators” the regs “would have to include” those things (and it’s probably true, given the demands of constituents that they “do something” and their own need “to appear to be doing something”), but I dropped that defense.
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Regarding the addition of a water heater, didn’t @Judi mention an under-sink heater that could be installed in-line? I know they exist, and that shouldn’t be a huge expense at all. As long as floors and walls aren’t ripped out for remodeling, this wouldn’t necessarily require updating the entire building to present day codes. (Something that is necessary anyway, in most jurisdictions, if it’s an imminent safety issue, such as earthquake or fire safety, for two examples.)

The cost is about $200 as @Judi stated above, @bkcunningham & @Adirondackwannabe. This has been to our older bldgs. with no trouble whatsoever. They fit directly under wall mounted sinks.

Also, the temp of the water may come under a health inspection, not a bldg. inspection.