Boise, ID Public Conduct: Public Urination (2026)

Section 5-2-13's text is short but sweeping: it is unlawful for any person to excrete human waste, including urine or feces, upon the ground, into a body of water, or upon anything attached to or sitting on those surfaces within the City, and the only carve-out is for waste deposited in an actual toilet facility built to receive it. The ban applies City-wide; it isn't limited to parks, the Downtown core, or the Boise River Greenbelt, and it doesn't require that anyone actually see the act or that property be damaged, only that the waste land somewhere other than a toilet.

The section dates to the 1952 Code (section 6-01-18) and sits in Title 5, chapter 2, General Offenses, alongside public intoxication, fighting and disorderly conduct. Chapter 2's general penalty section, 5-2-17, states that unless a specific offense says otherwise, a chapter 2 violation is a misdemeanor. Section 5-2-13 itself does not name its own penalty, so it falls under that default rather than being downgraded to a civil infraction the way possessing false identification (section 5-2-14) is. That means Boise Police can cite an offender directly for a misdemeanor rather than the lesser infraction track used elsewhere in the same chapter, and the case is heard in Boise City's misdemeanor court rather than as a civil infraction matter.