Columbia, SC Public Conduct: Public Urination (2026)

Section 14-104 is a single, unqualified sentence: it is unlawful for any person to urinate or defecate on or in any public or private property within the city except in a restroom or other toilet facility designated for the sanitary disposal of human waste. The ordinance was added by Ord. No. 2004-086 on September 8, 2004, and sits in Chapter 14's public-offenses article immediately after the switchblade knife prohibition and immediately before the urban camping section, reflecting the city's grouping of quality-of-life street offenses together.

Because the section does not carve out any location-based or time-based exception, it applies equally on public streets, sidewalks, parks and private property such as yards, parking lots or building exteriors. Enforcement falls to the Columbia Police Department, and because § 14-104 does not set its own penalty schedule, a conviction is punished under the code's general misdemeanor penalty provision at § 1-5, the same default penalty clause that governs most Chapter 14 public-offense sections such as loitering and drunkenness.