Looks awfully familiar - I witnessed the same attitudes in the run-down Baltimore. They are a classic example of what for the lack of better terminology I call the toilet lady syndrome.
The toilet lady is a venerable social institution found in Eastern Europe. Nominally, the position involves collecting fees for using public bathrooms, but it grew into a cultural icon. The incumbents are usually elderly women, otherwise unemployable, hence the name. It is probably the lowest position in the occupational hierarchy, but it controls a very valuable, under certain circumstances, resources; such as access to the bathroom key, access to toilet paper.
This co-existence of low status and control of valuable resource creates the toilet lady syndrome - which can be defined as "gratuitous denial of access to resources valued by others as the only means of exercising one's power and prestige." This syndrome is also referred to as 'testing one's prestige in a pizza line' or being a 'gardener's dog.'
Many self-styled social activists have advanced forms of the toilet lady syndrome because in spite of their voracious ambitions for influence and recognition they are typically relegated to the margins of irrelevance, or simply seen as crackpots, which they often are. Therefore they size any opportunity to deny something to people they perceive as "important" (city officials, developers, teachers, etc.) as the only means of exerting their influence no matter how pathetic and ridiculous their efforts are.
Wojtek