Ankeny, IA Public Conduct: Public Urination (2026)

Section 41.13, Urinating and Defecating, sits in Chapter 41, Public Health and Safety, and reads flatly: it is unlawful for any person to urinate or defecate onto any sidewalk, street, alley, or other public way, or onto any public or private building, including but not limited to the wall, floor, hallway, steps, stairway, doorway, or window thereof, or onto any public or private land, including golf courses. The section carries no separate penalty clause of its own, so it falls under the Code's standard penalty at § 1.14, which lists Chapter 41 among the chapters where a violation is punished the same as a simple misdemeanor under Iowa law, but without the jail-time component the state statute otherwise allows; each day a violation is permitted to continue is treated as a repeat offense.

Ankeny Police Department officers, who patrol Uptown Ankeny, Prairie Trail and the rest of the city, are the enforcing agency; a citation can be written on the spot because the ordinance requires no proof of intent beyond the act occurring in one of the listed locations. The explicit mention of golf courses reaches private land most other public-urination ordinances leave out, so the rule follows a person off the sidewalk and onto a private fairway or clubhouse grounds within city limits. There is no carve-out in the text for minors, intoxication, or lack of an available restroom; the section is written as a strict prohibition on the conduct itself.