Porta Potty Rental in Athens, AL 35611

On private ground, a yard, a driveway, a farm or a fenced site, a portable toilet in Athens normally needs no City permit. Streets and organized events are a different story, and Athens is unusually specific about restrooms.

The event application asks for us by name. The City publishes a special event permit and the form goes to the Athens Police Department at 951 E Hobbs Street. The application asks whether portable restrooms will be required, then wants the number, the installation date, the removal date, the name of the company providing them and the location of each unit. The City code backs that up by making the number, type, location and provision for toilet facilities part of what every application must state. So the order needs to be settled before the paperwork goes in, and your supplier ends up in the City's file.

Mind the deadlines, and the ceiling. A demonstration or non-profit event can be filed as late as three business days ahead, but five business days are required where animals, vehicles or floats are involved, or where the event uses a street. A for-profit event, or any event where alcohol is sold or consumed, has to be in a full month before the date. No application may be filed more than 12 months ahead, and the City stamps every application with the date and time of receipt so public space is allocated first come, first served. Popular Athens dates go early.

Also on the form. The City asks whether you have contacted its Sanitation Department, what your provisions are for cleaning up afterwards, and for a list of vendors, food trucks and musicians a week before the date. The permit is not transferable and the City may revoke it at any time.

Streets and sidewalks. The City code makes it unlawful to encumber a street, sidewalk or other public way with goods, lumber, fuel or any other article or thing whatever except under a City permit, so a unit on pavement needs one. There is also a safety condition that catches us: anyone leaving an obstruction of any kind in a public way must place a sufficient number of amber lights and barricades to warn people before they reach it, and the code puts responsibility on whoever was negligent if an accident follows. The Athens Street Department at 1600 Elm Street W, on 256-233-8747, requires notification before any work in the City right of way begins.

Who may pump the unit. Alabama puts this on the service company, not on you. State public health rules name portable toilet waste in its own right, treat the firm emptying the tank as a sewage tank pumper, and require it to be licensed by the state onsite wastewater board and permitted by the county health department. That permit cannot issue unless an approved disposal point is named, it is renewed in a window closing on the last day of December, and the truck must carry the permit holder's name and address in letters at least two inches high on both sides.

Not sure which approval you need? Your account manager will go through it with you.