Kalamazoo, MI Public Conduct: Public Urination (2026)

Added to the Code in 1997 and updated in the 2022 recodification, § 22-34.1 stands apart from the older indecent-exposure section that precedes it and targets public urination and defecation specifically. The ban covers three situations: relieving oneself on or in any public street, sidewalk, alley, park, parking lot, parking structure, public carrier, or other place open to the public; doing so on private property when the act is open to public view; and doing so on someone else's private property without the owner's consent, even if no one can see it.

The only carve-out is use of an actual rest room, so a person relieving themselves in a doorway, alley or parking structure without one available is still in violation. The Kalamazoo Department of Public Safety enforces the section, and because it sits among Chapter 22's public-order offenses rather than the more serious indecent-exposure section, the City treats a bare public-urination violation as a civil rather than a criminal matter, distinguishing it from indecent exposure committed for a lewd purpose under § 22-34.