I put a call out on The Facebook to find out what people’s thoughts on public BBQs are.

My reason for asking? I’ve always been a little hesitant to use them.

I believe it stems from a primary school conversation where I was told by a friend “Homeless people pee on them at night.” This sweeping statement was also applied to public water bubblers…

Now even though this is clearly a pretty ridiculous belief, over the course of many years it’s not the first reference I’ve heard to people urinating (or worse) on public property. Surely there it’s not a high stretch to imagine a group of drunkards stumbling past a BBQ and thinking it will be “hilarious” to take a leak on it.

It appears I’m not alone though, one of the responses I received from my question was:

“Someone openly admitted on the radio that he and his friends pissed on all the public BBQs along the Yarra in Melbourne.”

However, you learn something new every day…

“Friend for sure.. I just always bring protection (e.g. lay tinfoil down on the hotplate to cook on.)” or “With tinfoil always friend.”

The excitement of strange flavours tickled my fancy…

“The best. It’s like,what layer of exciting flavours will the history of this BBQ add to my own meat?”

… and more sage advice:

“Pee will burn off anyways”

Fair call.

I’ve never used the tinfoil, simply scrubbed the crap out of the plate to get it sparkly clean and cooked as hot and fast as possible.

So what do you think? Friend or Foe?