Albany, OR Public Conduct: Public Urination (2026)

The rule in the City of Albany, Oregon is one sentence long. Section 9.04.055 says no person shall deposit or discharge any human waste on public property upon any street, alley, public grounds, building, or place open and available to the general public. The word person carries no exception, so the ban reaches residents, visitors and anyone else on public property inside the city. The section uses the term human waste and does not separately name urination or defecation, and the sections read for this page do not define the term.

The list of locations is broad. Streets and alleys are named first, then public grounds, then any building, and the list closes with a catch-all for any place open and available to the general public.

The history line shows Ordinance 5820 of 2013 and Ordinance 5880 of 2016. A code reviser's note explains that Ordinance 5820 added the provisions as Section 9.04.050 and that the section was editorially renumbered to prevent duplication of numbering, which is why it now prints as 9.04.055.

Two neighboring sections in Chapter 9.04 cover related ground. Section 9.04.040(2) provides that no human excreta, kitchen wastes, laundry water, sink water or toilet wastes should be allowed to discharge or flow upon the surface of the ground or into any ditch, gutter, street, roadway or public place, nor onto private property so as to create a nuisance or health hazard. Section 9.04.040(4)(a) allows properly serviced and maintained chemical toilets to stay in use beyond 90 days, with approval of the Director of Public Works, when made available for public use and installed on public or city owned property.

The chapter's penalty clause, § 9.04.060, names §§ 9.04.010, 9.04.040, 9.04.045 and 9.04.050 and does not name § 9.04.055. The general penalty section, AMC § 1.04.010, fills that gap: where an offense is defined and no penalty is provided, the offense is deemed a misdemeanor.