UNION Street is a world away from the Champs-Élysées, but Aberdeen is adopting a distinctly Gallic solution when it comes to being caught short.
Generations of uninhibited Parisian messieurs who have imbibed a cognac too many have relieved themse
lves in the pissoir – or open air toilet.
But now the Granite City is clamping down on drunken anti-social behaviour by installing its own versions of the continental lavatories.
The idea is attracting interest from Scotland's largest city with council leaders in Glasgow considering their own solution to the problem.
While the doorless toilets may not offer the (exclusively male) user much privacy and the North Sea winds whipping around Union Street may be distinctly frosty, Aberdeen city leaders have hailed a trial of the portable plastic toilets as a success.
The city is now set to become the first in Scotland to install the alfresco loos on a permanent basis.
Councillor Martin Greig, chairman of the Aberdeen Community Safety Partnership, said there was a general feeling that the toilets would be far less unsavoury than the alternative.
He said: "We had received numerous complaints from members of the public about people urinating in public places in the city centre at night. It's a disgusting, unhealthy and potentially dangerous problem.
"There was also a feeling that there was a lack of public conveniences at night. People can be fined or even arrested for urinating in public so it is in everyone's interest that they use these new facilities.
"If it proves to be a success then there is every chance that it will become permanent and could possibly be extended in future."
A council spokesman said: "The toilets have been well-used and the public appear to have been very receptive. We haven't had any complaints and there hasn't been any vandalism. Each toilet is taking 100 gallons of urine off the street so we're very happy."
He said that previously council cleansing staff had to spend considerable time hosing down soiled shop and domestic doorways after the weekend.
The council worked with Grampian Police to identify trouble spots and have introduced four urinals, at a cost of £1,500 each, at Union Row, Langstane Place, Gaelic Lane and St Nicholas Street. The reinforced plastic toilets, which are anchored into place with weights, are erected at around 11pm on weekend nights as the streets fill up with revellers and are emptied and removed as the streets clear at around 5am.
Long-serving Conservative councillor Jill Wisely reserved judgment on the initiative. "Sadly this is a reflection of how some sections of young people live their lives today," she said. "Unfortunately this kind of behaviour is replicated in city centres across the whole of Britain."
But a barman at the Hen Hoose bar, just off Aberdeen's main pub and club hub, gave a warm welcome to the scheme.
"We are in a courtyard and I've lost count of the amount of times that I've seen people coming in and trying to wee against the wall," he said. "Aberdeen is certainly not the warmest place for open air toilets, but often at weekends people are so drunk that they barely know which city they are in anyway."
Over Christmas Glasgow introduced portable toilets in Sauchiehall Street, which houses many of the city's pubs and clubs.
A Glasgow City Council spokesman said: "The number of people charged with public urination dropped during that time. It appears to have been a successful experiment and will be looked at again in future."
Edinburgh and Dundee have no plans to follow Aberdeen's lead.
Portable toilets have already proved to be a success in towns and cities across England and Wales, including Leeds, Brighton and Wrexham.
Ironically Paris is phasing out its iconic pissoirs in favour of Sanisettes – self-cleaning Tardis-like booths.
The French capital's socialist mayor Bertrand Delanoë is launching a crackdown on street urinators and has backed the use of le mur anti-pipi. This bizarre invention is an undulating wall that fires urine back in the direction of the offender.
"The jet of pee is rather oblique. If it meets a sloping surface it is sent back to the trousers,'' said Etienne Vanderpooten, a municipal architect who has been working on the problem for the past 25 years. "It is the case of the arroseur arrosé (the sprinkler sprinkled]."
