SAN ANTONIO – The City of San Antonio passed an ordinance in October 2023 requiring all businesses and locations open to the public within city limits to have a sticker with domestic violence resources in their bathrooms.
The stickers are created and distributed for free by the city.
For the last year, the city has been educating the public and disseminating the stickers, and just last month, the enforcement stage began.
Bright Coffee in Beacon Hill was one of the first businesses in the city to display the resource signs in their bathrooms.
“It was a no-brainer for me just to be able to provide a free resource for anybody who needs help,” said owner Hana Buck.
One in three women and one in seven men in Bexar County fall into that category.
“It is disturbing how prevalent this is in our community. Just the City of San Antonio’s health department supports a thousand new people per month with services, and that’s just as one organization,” said the city’s Violence Prevention Manager, Erica Haller-Stevenson.
Haller-Stevenson said those numbers spike every holiday season when financial stress can be high and more family time is expected.
That’s why the placement of the stickers in bathrooms is important.
“They’re being controlled in many ways, and that may limit their ability to get information or to reach out for help. So putting information in as many places as possible where people will see it and can very discreetly capture it really gives them some power back,” Haller-Stevenson said.
After the ordinance went into effect, Haller-Stevenson immediately saw some results.
“As soon as we started distributing the stickers, we saw an increase in the traffic to the website,” Haller-Stevenson said.
The main resource number on the sign is the national hotline, which is tracking calls for the city.
“We are going to hear around the end of this calendar year, end of December, what the hotline looks like if the calls are going to a national hotline. So we have two request reports for that,” Haller-Stevenson said.
However, the QR code goes to Metro Health, so they are monitoring those numbers as well.
The city has given out the free stickers to over 20,000 businesses in San Antonio, but there are far more than that.
Anyone who owns a business is expected to call 3-1-1 and get stickers delivered at no cost.
“You can also, as a community member, call 3-1-1 and make a report that somebody does not have theirs,” Haller-Stevenson said.
While there’s no monetary fine, the city aims to be persistent about enforcement.
“We’ll visit you until you maintain compliance. So you’ll get a lot of visits from the health department talking about getting your signs up in the right places,” Haller-Stevenson said.
Haller-Stevenson and Buck hope business owners will realize the impact the stickers can have.
“You may not be someone who experiences domestic violence, but maybe a family member does or a neighbor or coworker. And you might be the person who points them to some assistance,” Haller-Stevenson said.
“The amount of eyes who are seeing that message and those resources, just to be able to get those resources out there,” Buck said.
The city has a specific website dedicated to these domestic violence resource signs, and the community is encouraged to learn about them and use them.
If you or someone you know is in an abusive relationship, there is a long list of resources on KSAT’s Domestic Violence page which includes a breakdown of what abuse is, and how it builds gradually.
If you are in crisis, you can:
- call or text 911
- call the Domestic Violence Hotline at 800-799-7233
- call the local Family Violence Prevention Services, which runs the shelter (Crisis Number: 210-733-8810, Programs and Administration: 210-930-3669)
- call the Bexar County Family Justice Center at 210-631-0100.