Appleton, WI Public Conduct: Public Urination (2026)

Section 10-45 of the Appleton Municipal Code, adopted by Ord. 139-01 in 2001, prohibits urinating or defecating outside of any designated sanitary facility on a wide list of locations: any sidewalk, street, alley, public parking lot or ramp, park, playground, or cemetery, or any other public area. The ordinance does not stop at public property; it also reaches private property when the act occurs in open view of the public, and it separately covers the halls, rooms without restroom facilities, stairways or elevators of public or commercial buildings, closing off a common excuse that a building's interior common areas are not truly public.

The section sits among the Chapter 10 miscellaneous offenses alongside the graffiti nuisance ordinance in § 10-38 and the loitering rules in §§ 10-36 and 10-40, and like most of that chapter it states no penalty of its own, so a violation is prosecuted under the Code's general penalty in § 1-16. Officers cite the offense under the citation procedure in § 1-17, which requires the citation to specify the section violated and the factual basis for the alleged violation, and a first-time violator may resolve the matter by posting a cash deposit from the schedule the City Clerk keeps on file under § 1-18 rather than appearing in court.