Amsterdam city council is to spend €4 million to develop city centre public toilets for women, seven years after a high profile “peeing in public” case hit the city’s courts.

The furore dates back to 2017 when a 23-year-old Dutch woman lost her appeal against a fine for urinating in a public place after the judge told her she could have used a urinal.

Geerte Piening was fined €140 after she was caught urinating between the Balie debating centre and ABN Amro bank on Amsterdam’s Leidseplein after a night out in 2015.

Some 2.5 years later, an Amsterdam court ruled that the fine was legal, saying the ban on urinating in public applies to both men and women. However, the male judge cut the fine to €90 because of the length of time the case had taken to court.

At the time in central Amsterdam there were 35 public urinals for men and just four public toilets for women. The city council’s own map still shows just nine public places where women can pee without breaking the law within the ring road.

Still holding out? Amsterdam’s toilet troubles continue

Several initiatives have sprung up since then to help. HogeNood (very urgent) is a popular app that guides users towards public toilets around the country. And software engineer Adnan Hodzic recently created one solely devoted to bathrooms in the city called the Amsterdam Toilet & Urinal Finder.

The Casa Rossa sex theatre in the red light district has even opened its own appropriately-themed public convenience.

In 2019, the city council voted in favour of a D66 motion calling for more public toilets which now, five years on, is being put into effect.

Officials have not yet said how many toilets will be built with the €4 million, but the first will open this year in the Oosterpark in October, local broadcaster NH said. 

“It’s been a long time coming, but the fact that it is coming is very welcome,” Piening told NH.