Restaurant's one-way mirror allows gents to peep into the ladies

Men urinating at an Austrian sushi restaurant can watch ladies applying their make-up thanks to a one-way mirror installed in front of the urinals. Until recently ladies on the other side, in the ladies room at Dots Experimental Sushi, Vienna, believed they were in front of an ordinary mirror and had no idea they were being watched.

"We were shocked when we heard that," said Mrs. B., a customer at the restaurant, who was there with her friends. "I immediately responded to a waiter and was told to be quiet," said the 45-year-old. The Managing Director also didn't take their complaint taken seriously. "He did not even apologize." Mrs. B. and her friends turned to the police and the Equal Treatment Commission. City Councillor spokeswoman Stephanie Grubich said: "It's terrible. This is really a form of harassment."



Restaurant spokesman Alexander Khaelssberg said that the mirror only shows women at the sink and does not offend anyone's private space. One only sees "the women while washing or applying make-up. 95 percent of our clients, whether male or female, find it funny," he said.

The whole thing is also an art project by architect and lighting artist Alexander Riegler who said that the mirror is an attempt to "stir people into a discussion of voyeurism and surveillance," in an era when almost everyone is being watched. The restaurant recently put up a sign advising women that they are part of an "art project" after complaints. Ladies will get their turn in January, when the mirror is reversed to let them look at men's faces while they stand at the urinal.