Part 5 of 9 in Philadelphia Code: Accidental Anthropology

Section 9-609 of the Philadelphia Code, in subsection (1), requires self-service laundromats to do two things. Post the owner’s name, address, and telephone number on the wall. And maintain a public telephone on the premises in a conspicuous location. The provision dates to 1961. The provision is still in the Code. The same section, on a different subsection, also bans laundromats from operating between 1am and 6am — I wrote about that in The Laundromat Curfew.

Think about what that meant in 1961. A laundromat was a place you went with a bag of clothes and a pocket full of quarters. You sat on a plastic chair for 90 minutes. If your car broke down, or your kid got sick, or your boss needed you at work, you needed a way to call out. The laundromat was a public space. The telephone was a public utility. The ordinance wired them together: if you operated the public space, you had to provide the public utility.

That world is gone. Payphones are gone. Most of us carry a telephone more powerful than the one Nixon used to resign. The 1961 logic — the laundromat as a place where you might be stranded without a way to reach anyone — has no analog in 2026. Everyone has a phone. The wall-mounted payphone is a museum piece. The 1961 ordinance, though, is still in the Code.

The Code has two requirements. The first — a posted sign with the owner’s contact info — is universally satisfied. Every laundromat posts it, because every business posts it. That part is fine.

The second — a public telephone in a conspicuous location — is universally not satisfied. Just for fun, after finding this a few months ago, I walked into about half a dozen laundromats to see if any still complied. 0 out of 7 did. None of them had been dinged by L&I for non-compliance, either because the inspectors didn’t know the rule or because the inspectors don’t enforce this rule.

One laundromat owner I showed the law to just laughed and said I could use his phone if I wanted — while I was showing him the code on my own phone.

So every self-service laundromat in Philadelphia is, on paper, in violation of § 9-609. Every single one. And the Department of Licenses and Inspections issues them licenses anyway, because the alternative is to shut down an industry over a phone booth.

Everybody knows. Nobody enforces it. Nobody changes it.

Sources: Philadelphia Code § 9-609 (codelibrary).