Could Porta Potties Derail Stewart, Colbert Rallies?

October 30th is supposed to be when Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert hold their rallies in Washington, D.C. But a dispute over Porta Potties is throwing a wrench in those plans.

The National Parks Service suggests requires that the ratio of people to toilets for an event should must be 300-1. But the Marine Corps Marathon taking place the day after the Comedy Central hosts' events has already snatched up many of the areas portable restrooms (800 to be exact), leaving rally organizers scrambling to find a sufficient number of toilets.

Complicating matters is that the marathon refuses to share (even though the events fall on different days), already telling rally organizers that the restrooms will be padlocked on Oct. 30th, despite offers from the Stewart and Colbert camps to share rental costs and clean the toilets before the marathon:

“I understand that they were having problems ordering Porta Potties, that they might have to go as far as Baltimore to get them, but I just didn’t want to share,” Rick Nealis, race director for the marathon, told the New York Times.

“It will cost me a few extra pennies [to use padlocks], but it’s worth it to know that my runners won’t run out of toilet paper,” he said.

Bill Line, spokesman for the National Capital Region of the Park Service, doesn't think the restrooms will be an issue. In a phone interview with the Times he said the issue is nothing new: “It is common, typical, regular, ordinary for us to handle multiple events on the National Mall at any given time. Do you get that?”