Larreta asked to use the bathrooms in bars due to the smell of urine in CABA.

The former head of Government of the City of Buenos Aires,  Horacio Rodríguez Larreta,  candidate for legislator, decided to focus his campaign on the "smell of urine" that, according to him,  floods the streets of Buenos Aires. "I'm coming back because there's a smell of urine," he declared without hesitation in mid-March, announcing his return to politics. The phrase, which caused surprise and memes on social media, is part of a series of complaints about the lack of cleanliness and the alleged neglect of the City.  "For the city we built together, because Buenos Aires is in bad shape and no one listens to you, because it's dirty, because it's sad, because there are no more public works. Because there's a smell of urine", he justified.

In this context, Rodríguez Larreta demanded compliance with ordinance 46,798, enacted in 1993, which requires bars, restaurants, and other gastronomic establishments to allow access to bathrooms to anyone, whether they have consumed there or not.  "There's a law from many years ago that all gastronomic establishments must have a bathroom for customers and for people who enter", he stated in an interview. However, when it was pointed out to him that this regulation is not being followed, he simply replied: "The law is there."

Paradoxically,  it was during his own tenure as head of Government, between 2015 and 2023, that this law continued to be unenforced. Even several legislative attempts made during that period also failed. In 2019, for example, a project was presented to allow businesses to charge for the use of restrooms, but it  did not progress. That same year, law 6,107 was enacted, which obliges the Buenos Aires Government to incorporate public restrooms in green spaces larger than three hectares.  That initiative also stalled during his administration.

Now, far from taking responsibility for the years of management in which the problem persisted, Larreta proposes a solution that draws attention for its simplicity and conceptual backwardness:  installing paid public restrooms, as is done in some European cities.  "In many countries around the world, there are bathrooms where you insert a coin to enter. That can be done", he suggested.