Bill 190 for Retail — What Store Owners and Shopping Centres Need to Know

Ontario’s retail sector spans everything from independent boutiques to major anchor tenants in large enclosed malls. Bill 190 and O. Reg. 480/24 apply across this entire spectrum — but the compliance picture looks different depending on whether you’re a store owner, a mall operator, or a franchise system.

This guide is specifically for Ontario retail employers: what the law requires, who is responsible in a mall or plaza environment, and how to build a workable compliance program for a retail context.

Who Is Covered in Retail

The washroom compliance obligation under O. Reg. 480/24 applies to any Ontario employer who provides washroom facilities for workers. In retail, this captures:

Standalone retailers with their own washroom (even a single back-of-house staff washroom): You are the employer. The washroom you provide to your staff is subject to the cleaning record requirement.

Mall tenants: If your store has a staff washroom within your leased space, you are responsible for maintaining the cleaning record for that washroom. If your staff use a common-area mall washroom, the responsibility is shared — see the section on malls below.

Franchise operators: You are the employer for your workers. Your franchisor may have guidance or tools for compliance, but the legal obligation sits with you as the entity employing the workers at your specific location.

Shopping centre operators (the mall itself): If you employ workers — security staff, maintenance, management — and those workers use washrooms in the common areas you control, you are an employer with compliance obligations for those facilities.

The Staff Washroom vs. Customer Washroom Question

This comes up frequently in retail: does the compliance obligation apply to customer washrooms or just staff washrooms?

The answer is nuanced. The law applies to washroom facilities that you provide to workers. If your retail location has:

• A staff-only washroom: clearly covered

• A washroom that is designated for customers but also used by staff when needed: effectively covered — it’s being provided to workers, even if that’s not its primary purpose

• A customer washroom that staff are explicitly not permitted to use (and have a separate staff facility): the customer washroom would arguably not be covered, but this is a grey area worth confirming with legal counsel

For most retail environments, the practical approach is to treat all washrooms that workers use — even occasionally — as covered by the compliance obligation. The administrative burden of maintaining a cleaning record is small relative to the risk of being found non-compliant.

Mall and Shopping Centre Compliance — Who Owns What

In an enclosed mall or retail plaza, washroom responsibility depends on who controls the facility and who uses it:

Common-area washrooms controlled by the mall: In most large retail centres, the public washrooms are owned and operated by the shopping centre, not by individual tenants. The shopping centre employs maintenance and cleaning staff. The shopping centre’s janitorial staff clean these washrooms.

In this situation, the shopping centre — as the employer of the cleaning and maintenance staff who service these washrooms — likely has the primary compliance obligation for maintaining cleaning records in common-area washrooms.

But: tenants whose workers also use these common-area washrooms have their own interest in confirming the records are there and accessible. If a Ministry of Labour inspector visits a retail store and asks to see cleaning records for the washroom that the store’s employees use — and that’s a common-area mall washroom — the store’s manager is going to need to point them somewhere.

The practical advice: if you’re a mall tenant who relies on common-area washrooms, confirm with mall management that cleaning records are being maintained. Ask for documentation that records exist and are accessible. If they aren’t, the conversation with your landlord about who is responsible is better to have before an inspector arrives.

Private washrooms within leased retail space: These are clearly the tenant’s responsibility.

How Retail Compliance Works in Practice

For most retail employers, the compliance workflow is straightforward:

Identify your washrooms: Count every washroom facility in your space that workers use. In a typical small-to-medium retail store, this is one or two staff washrooms.

Set up a cleaning record: Either a paper log mounted visibly in or near the washroom, or a QR code that links to a digital log.

Train your staff: Whoever cleans the washroom — whether that’s a dedicated cleaning person or a staff member as part of their closing duties — needs to know to log the cleaning with a date and time after it’s done.

Keep it current: The record should always show the two most recent cleanings. This means the log needs to be updated after every cleaning, not just once a day.

Make it accessible: The log should be posted so any worker — including a new hire on their first day — can see it without asking anyone. Taping a paper log to the wall inside the washroom at eye level is sufficient.

Retail-Specific Challenges

A few things make washroom compliance in retail a bit different from other sectors:

High staff turnover: Retail has among the highest employee turnover of any sector in Ontario. Your washroom cleaning process needs to be simple enough to survive constant staff changes. A QR scan that takes ten seconds is more resilient to turnover than a multi-field paper log that requires specific handwriting instructions.

Shift cleaning as part of opening/closing duties: In many retail stores, washroom cleaning is a task in the opening or closing checklist rather than a dedicated cleaning role. This is fine — the cleaning still needs to be logged, and the task should include a scan or log entry as part of the completion checklist.

District manager oversight: Franchise and chain retail operators with district managers overseeing multiple stores should include washroom compliance in district-level check-ins. A five-minute review of whether each store’s washroom records are current and accessible should be part of any district visit checklist.

Holiday staffing: Extra seasonal and holiday staff need to know the cleaning log process. Include it in your seasonal staff orientation.

Customer-Facing Washrooms: A Strategic Opportunity

While compliance is the regulatory driver, maintaining clean customer washrooms and documenting it creates a trust signal that resonates with customers and employees alike. A visible QR code in a public washroom that shows a cleaning history — demonstrating that this location takes cleanliness seriously — is increasingly a differentiator.

Shopping centres and large retailers who make their washroom cleanliness program visible (via QR access open to the public, not just staff) are getting ahead of what is likely to become an industry standard in facilities management. The compliance requirement creates the infrastructure; making it visible is a choice that signals quality.

The Bottom Line for Retail Employers

For most retail stores, Bill 190 washroom compliance is not complicated:

• Count your staff washrooms (usually one or two)

• Put up a cleaning log in each one

• Train whoever cleans it to log the date and time after each cleaning

• Check it monthly to confirm it’s being maintained

For mall operators and franchise systems, the responsibility question is more layered, but the underlying compliance action is the same. The sooner you implement a system, the less risk you carry — and the simpler the inspection conversation becomes.