Since 320 B.C., when Athens became the first municipality to ban the dumping of human waste into the streets, civilization has depended on its systems for disposing of bodily waste, with modern cities flourishing alongside technologies such as the flushing toilet and extensive sewage systems.
Yet on a Thursday night in late June, when a tall blond man exited a Main Avenue drinking hole, modern waste-disposal systems were not foremost in his mind. His halting, hulking, swaying journey up 10th Street brought to mind a newborn fawn taking its first steps – minus the instinctual grace – until he suddenly careened into the alley. There, he dropped his trousers, and proceeded to relieve himself between the trash bins adjacent to City Hall’s parking lot.
Though it’s illegal, public urination is a phenomenon not likely to evaporate anytime soon. It’s common, and for the unlucky few who get caught, it can be costly.
Durango Police Department spokesman Lt. Ray Shupe said public urination is “obscene conduct” under the city’s municipal code, which states: “It is unlawful for any person to urinate or defecate in the public view, whether in or on public or private property, except in a room or area designated and equipped for such purposes.”
Shupe said in 2012, Durango police issued 83 citations for obscene conduct, up from 34 in 2008.
Citations tend to spike in the summer months. Last year, the police issued 13 citations in June, versus three in November.
Obscene conduct is punishable by up to 90 days in jail and a $1,000 fine. But most defendants plead guilty to a reduced charge of disorderly conduct – which sounds less distasteful but carries the same penalty – unless the act was particularly egregious. An egregious example would be someone urinating in plain view on Main Avenue or being a multiple offender.
Going downtown
The police blotter is rife with reports of public urination, with most complaints originating from people who live or work on Main Avenue, East Second Avenue and East Third Avenue.
In just the last year, Denny’s Restaurant, Fuzziwigs Candy Factory and Gardenswartz Outdoors have been victimized. Residential buildings, too, are targets. In September, police were called to Jarvis Condos, where a man parked his car, exited it and began to indiscriminately pee. Two weeks later, police received complaints that people partying atop Lightner Creek Condos had peed, aiming away from the roof.
Last year, someone defecated on private property on East Second Avenue, just hundreds of feet from the Durango School District 9-R Administration Building. People discovered another pile of human feces behind a Main Avenue business this April.
City prosecutor Bill Corwin recalled a patron of Orio’s Roadhouse urinating inside the bar, in full view of other customers. “He just walked in and took a leak,” Corwin said.
The vast majority of such public obscenities that resulted in citations took place before police officers’ eyes.
Corwin said some police have photographed the evidence.
“You kind of need that puddle,” he said.
Shupe said police always allow people to right their dress before handing them the ticket.
In interviews, several people who work in downtown bars and restaurants said by the time they leave work in the wee hours, they are forced to walk Durango’s “yellow brick roads.”
Tony Alicea, a doorman and bartender at Irish Embassy Pub, said Durango is awash with public urination.
“People just pee in random spots in the alley. I see it all the time, even though I’m not even looking for it,” he said. “Walking home, you’ll definitely see someone in the shadows, facing the wall.”
Alicea said it is always deeply inappropriate, but for many Durangoans, “it’s the norm at 2 o’clock in the morning, whenever you’re walking home from the bars.”
In an email, Shupe said police have no specific strategy to combat public urination.
“The police are always watching; that’s what we get paid to do. We don’t have patrol routes specifically designed to catch people urinating in public,” he said. “We do have increased patrol efforts in the downtown areas at night to discourage all unlawful behavior, to include obscene conduct.”
Lawyer up?
In big cities such as New York and Los Angeles, some lawyers specialize in public urination.
Corwin said people charged with public obscenity in Durango rarely get a lawyer. He said few people charged with public obscenity mount impassioned defenses in court.
In age, race and religion, he said, offenders run the gamut.
“It goes all the way across the board,” he said.
Offenders, he said, are overwhelmingly male, though in rare instances when women have been charged, the crimes tend to be more serious “because of locations, and what’s going on is typically a little more aggravated.”
Corwin said in his years as city prosecutor, those accused of public obscenity have had only one thing in common.
“They were out of their mind – blotto,” he said.
Nonetheless, Corwin did wonder whether some instances of public obscenity were premeditated, citing a student who peed on the window of the Fort Lewis College commons. He said he was especially troubled by an attack on May Palace Restaurant that took place at 8 p.m. as the restaurant was serving its patrons dinner.
“Peeing on the windows of an open business – it’s just – you’re either so blotto you have no idea what you’re doing, or you’re really not a good person,” he said.
Explaining why people urinate in public is not simple.
Irish Embassy’s Alicea said he didn’t understand the public-urination phenomenon.
“Obviously, we do have multiple bathrooms for the public to use,” Alicea said. “Especially for males, they just like being able to pee wherever they want.”
It’s a long shot, but perhaps there’s a lesson for humans in dog training. Riverview Animal Hospital’s Dr. Stacee Santi said many animals psychologically struggle to grasp that they cannot void themselves in any and all circumstances.
She said dogs could be “very difficult.”
“They’ll pee wherever,” Santi said. “I don’t know what’s wrong with people. But dogs really lack social standards.”
But she said dogs could be taught to pee outside using rewards.
She doubted similar policies were feasible for humans.
“Rewards for peeing in a toilet? Give them a quarter? I don’t know,” Santi said. “If you can train a dog, you can train a person. Well, I’m not sure, actually. Dogs don’t consume large amounts of alcohol and lose their ability to make a decision.”
cmcallister@durangoherald.com
