DeKalb County, GA Public Conduct: Public Urination (2026)

Section 16-51 sits in Article III of Chapter 16, "Offenses Against Public Peace and Order," alongside other street-level nuisance offenses like throwing objects in public and disrupting lawful gatherings. The section itself is a single flat prohibition: it is unlawful to defecate or urinate on or adjacent to any street or sidewalk, in the halls, elevators, stairways or any other area designated for public passage within a public or commercial building, or on any property open to public view. The ordinance dates to Ordinance No.

90-21, adopted July 24, 1990, and has not been narrowed since; it does not carve out exceptions for medical necessity, and it applies regardless of whether the property is publicly or privately owned, so long as the act happens somewhere visible from public view or in a public passage area. Because the section is part of the general Code rather than a chapter with its own penalty schedule, enforcement runs through DeKalb County's general penalty provision, Section 1-10, which lets police or code compliance officers issue a citation returnable in Magistrate Court.

The prohibition is enforced countywide in the unincorporated area, meaning it covers county parks, county-maintained sidewalks and rights-of-way, and any commercial parking lot or storefront visible from the street, but it does not reach conduct inside cities such as Decatur, Dunwoody, Brookhaven, Tucker or Stonecrest, which prosecute equivalent conduct under their own municipal or state disorderly-conduct provisions instead.